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ADDRESS 

OF 

IR.  FRANKLIN   B.  COW  EN, 

ON 

t    Position    which  the    City   of  Philadelphia 

should  occupy  to  the  Commonwealth  of 

Pennsylvania,  to  its  Transportation 

Lines,  and  to  the  Railway 

Problem  of  the  day. 

SLIVERED  UPON  THE  INVITATION  OF  CITIZENS  OF  PHILADELPHIA, 

AT  THE 

THURSDAY  EVENING,  JUNE  16,  1881. 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  INVITATION  COMMITTEE. 
ORTED  BY  D.  F.  MURPHY,  Official  Reporter  of  the  U.  S.  Senate. 


Jackson  Bros.,  Printers,  Library  St.,  Philadelphia. 


H£',A7r 


^ 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


Philadelphia,  May  31,  1S81. 
FRANKLIN  B.  GOWEN,  Esq., 

President  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading  BaUraad  Co. 

Dear  Sir  : — 

The  undersigned,  your  fellow-citizens  of  this  great  Common- 
wealth, many  of  us  share  and  bondholders  in  the  widespread 
interests  intrusted  to  your  care,  view  with  apprehension  any  pos- 
sible dwarfing  of  the  usefulness  and  progress  of  the  Philadelphia 
and  Reading  Railroad  Company,  The  present  situation  of  its 
affairs  is  to  be  regretted.  Everything  points  to  its  rapid  restoration, 
if  it  were  not  for  the  persisrently  continued  litigation. 

Those  of  the  subscribers  who  were  present  at  your  late  meeting, 
were  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  show  you  our  confidence  in  ihe 
sincerity  of  your  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  the  Road,  We  now 
respectfully  ask  that  you  may  further  enlighten  us  as  to  the  sit- 
uation, in  its  bearings  on  the  industries  and  commerce  of  our  City 
and  State,  as  you,  with  your  experience  and  knowledge  of  it, 
see  it. 

The  future  of  the  Railroading  Interests  of  this  countrv  is  a 
tremendous  problem.  No  doubt,  in  its  broaaest  sense,  also,  you 
have  deeply  pondered  it,  and  in  its  solution  your  powerful  aid 
cannot  but  be  enlisted;  as  also  in  the  local  movements  of  reform 
now  progressing  so  encouragingly  to  earnest  men. 

If  you  can,  at  an  early  date,  respond  to  our  desire,  in  a  public 
address,  we  will  at  once  arrange  the  time  and  place  for  you. 

AVe  are,  truly  yours. 


JOHN  H.  BRINGHURST, 
RICHARD  HECKSCHER  &  CO., 
JOHN  MILNES, 
GEORGE  F.  WIGGAN. 
DONALDSON  &  THOMAS, 
W.  H.  DRAYTON, 
POWERS  &  WEIGHTMAN, 
RICHARD  VAUX, 
DANIEL  R.  BENNETT, 
JOHN  T.  MORRIS, 
WILLIAM  C.  LUDWIG, 
CHARLES  M.  TAYLOR'S  SONS, 
CHARLES  D.  NORTON  &  CO., 
WILLIAM  W.  HARKNESS, 


J.  B.  MOORHEAD, 

HENRY  CAREY  BAIRD  &  CO. 

E.  C.  KNIGHT. 

J.  B.  ALTEMUS, 

ROBERT  SHOEMAKER, 

WILLIAM  H.  LUCAS. 

DARLINGTON,  RUNK  &  CO., 

ALEX.  WHILLDIN  &  SONS, 

GEORGE  GRIFFITHS, 

JOSEPH  L.  CAVEN, 

JOHN  F.  ORNE, 

JAMES  C.  ALLEN, 

JOHN  WANAMAKFR, 

JOHN  &  JAMES  DOBSON, 


ivil75787 


C.  A.  SPARKS, 

L.  H.  TAYLOR  &  CO., 

WILLIAM   H.  HAINES, 

A.  H.  TACK, 

EDW.  P.  KERSHOW, 

JAMES  FULLER, 

CHARLES  SCHAFFER,  M.D., 

A.  WELCH, 

ZOPHAR  C.  HOWELL, 

SAMUEL  H.  GILBERT, 

W.  P.  JENKS, 

CHARLES  W.  WHARTON, 

J.  JACOB  MOHR, 

HOOPES  &  TOWNSEND, 

STRAWBRIDGE  &  CLOTHIER, 

JOHN  K.  WALKER, 

E.  C.  JAYNE, 

THOMAS  W.  EVANS, 

CHARLES  SPENCER, 

JAMES  DARRACH,  M.D., 

WILLIAM  H.  SHELMERDINE, 

R.  S.  PEABODY, 

JOHN  GARRETT, 

GALLOWAY  C.  MORRIS, 

SAMUEL  MASON, 

NORTON  JOHNSON, 

G.  E.  ALKINS, 

KNEEDLER,  PATTERSON  &  CO., 

J.  T.  WAY  &  CO., 

JOHN  M.  MARIS, 

BURNHAM,PARRY,WILLIAMS& 

W.   H.  STEVENSON, 

WM.  GRAHAM, 

WM.  B.  N.  COZENS, 

JOSEPH  L.  OSLER, 

NATHAN  T.  CLAPP, 

LEWIS  M.  HAUPT, 

WALTER  E.  REX. 

JOSEPH  PARRISH, 

EDWARD  HOPPER, 

J.  B.   BAKER, 

JOHN  McLaughlin, 

JOEL  J.  BAILY, 

E.  C.  EBY, 

WILLIAM  BROCKIE, 

PHILIP    FITZ PATRICK. 

CHARLES  GIBBONS,  JR., 

JOHN  T.  BAILEY  &  CO., 

E    T.  CLARK, 

EVAN    RANDOLPH, 

HENRY  WHELEN, 

EDWARD  T.  PARKER, 

L.  T.  SALAIGNAC, 

RICHARD  LEVICK'S  SON  &  CO., 

WM.  B.  BEMENT  &  SON, 

JOHN  LUCAS, 

WM.  HENRY  LEX, 

MARSH.^LL  BROS.  &  CO., 

D.  R.  PATTERSON, 
CARROLL  S.  TYSON. 
THOMAS  S.  ELLIS, 
FURMAN  SHEPPARD, 


B.  ROWLAND, 
WILLIAM  M.  KAUFMAN, 
P.  C.  HOLLIS, 

S.  M.  HEATON   &  CO., 
GEORGE   HOWELL, 
ROBERT  E.    PATTISON, 

C.  COLKET, 
DAVID  REEVES, 

Prp.s't  Phoenix  Iron  Co., 
H.  N.  BURROUGHS, 
EDGAR  N.  BLACK, 
S.  W.  JACOBS'  SON, 
BATES  &  AUCHINCLOSS 
WILLIAM  ARROTT, 
R.  D.  WOOD  &  CO., 
BARCLAY  &  BARCLAY, 
CONYERS  BUTTON, 
R.  P.  McCULLAGH, 
EMLEN  N.  CARPENTER 
GEORGE  A.  WARDER. 
JAMES  S.  YOUNG, 
S.   CHEW, 

CHARLES  W.  OTTO, 
JOPIN  ALBURGER, 
HOOD   BONBRIGHT  &  CO., 
FRYMIER  &  EDWARDS, 
EDWIN  CLINTON  &  CO. 
BENJAMIN  THACKARA, 
CHARLES  M.  DUPUY, 
DAVID  A.  PREED, 
COO.  &  PI    BORIE, 
W.  W.  HARDING, 
De HAVEN  &  TOWNSEND, 
JOHN  W.  MOFFLY, 
JNO.  B.  ELLISON  &  SONS, 
YOUNG,  SMYTH,  FIELD  &  CO., 
WM.  E.  LOCKWOOD, 
EDWARD  A.  SIBLEY, 
JOHN  S.  JENKS, 
W.  A.  SMETHURST, 
SILAS  ALDRICH. 
W.  B.  MENDENHALL, 
JOHN  HUNTER, 
JAMES  SPEAR, 
JAMES  MOORE, 
WM.  SELLERS  &  CO., 
H.  L.  GAW,  JR., 
WARNER  &  MERRITT, 
HEATON  &  DENCKLA  HDW.  CO. 
H.  GEIGER, 
WM.    EDGE, 

SAMUEL  H.  ROTHERMEL, 
JAMKS  M.  WILLCOX, 
SAMUEL  G.  KING, 
M.  S.  BULKLEY, 
JOSEPH  S.  PATTERSON, 
J.  B.  VAN  DUSEN, 
JOHN  BAIRD. 
JOHN  TURNER, 
WM.  H.  JENKS, 
CHARLES  E.  SMITH. 


■The  following  Besidenfs  of  Worristown,  Lancaster,  PoUstown, 
Heading,  and  Pottsville  : — 


JAMES  HOOVEN  &  SONS, 

C.  B.  BERTOLETTE, 

J.    M.  HELLER, 

THOMAS  H.  WENTZ, 

HENRY  A.  DERR. 

RICHARD  S.  NEWBOLD  &  SON, 

C.  P.  WEAVER,  Treas   Pa.  Tack  Wks. 

F.  D.  FARNUM  &  CO., 

H.  C.  HARNER, 

JACOB  BAUSMAN. 

JAMES  B.  FREY, 

J.  L.  LYLE, 

J.  M.  LONG, 

HENRY  A.  SHULTZ, 

JOHN  T.   MacGONIGLE, 

WALTER  M.  FRANKLIN, 

CHARLES  F.  RENGIER,  Jk  , 

WM.  T.  JEFFERIES, 

JOS.  HERZOG, 

E.  EBERMAN, 

THOS.  BAUMGARDNER, 

JOHN  KELLER, 

GEORGE  L.  BOYLE, 

J).  W.  PATTERSON, 

J.  P.  WICKERSHAM, 

H.  C.  DEMUTH, 

HENRY  BAUMGARDNER. 

A.  S.  BARD, 

CHARLES  M.  HOWELL, 

GEORGE  STEINMAN, 

GEORGE  M.  FRANKLIN, 

BENJ.  F.  SHENK, 

J.  B.  LONG, 

MARK  H.  RICHARDS, 

ISAAC  FEGELY, 

Pres't  Warwick  Iron  Co., 
JOHN  W.  CASELBERRY, 
A.  STOUB, 
GEORGE  R.  FRILL 
HENRY  S.  ECKERT, 
DANIEL   SHAABER, 
GEORGE  W.  GRANT, 
HORACE  ROLAND, 
WILLIAM  P.  CUSTER, 
SOL.  WEIDA, 


C.  WHEELER, 

A.  STRANG, 

A.  L.  BOYER, 

J.  L.  STICHTER, 

JACOB  BUSHONG, 

JACOB  SNELL, 

J.  V.  CRAIG, 

J.  MOHN, 

S.  M.  YORGEY, 

GEORGE  LONG, 

GEORGE  W.  BRUCKMAN, 

W.  H.  ROBINSON, 

THOMAS  D.  STICHTER, 

LERCH  HDW.  CO.,  LIMITED, 

C.  K.  WHITNER, 

HOFF  &  BROTHER, 

JOHN  B.  BROOKE,  M.D., 

E.  L.  SCHMUCKER,  M.D., 
A.  K.  KLINE. 

WM.  McILVAIN, 

F.  G.  BOAS, 
JOHN  SAYLOR, 
ISAIAH  GOODFELLOW, 
R  B.  FICHTHORN, 
WM.  KERPER, 

L.  HEBER  SMITH, 

E.  S.  FOX,  &  CO., 

STERLING  WEIDNER  &  CO., 

MELLERTF'NDRY&MACH.CO..]iin. 

J.  FINK  &  CO., 

PENN  HARDWARE  CO., 

GEORGE  J.  ECKERT, 

W.  H.  WILHELM, 

H.  H.  MUHLENBERG, 

L.  J.  HARROLD, 

FRANK  O'REILLY, 

A.  K.  STAUFFER, 

J.  H.  CRAIG, 

W.  B.   GRIESEMER. 

HENRY  JOHNSTON. 

W.  DONALDSON, 

C.  M.  ATKINS, 

P.  W.  SHEAFER. 

CHARLES  BABER. 


—  The  following  members  of  the  Legislature  at  Harrhhurg  :- 


LEWIS   EMERY,  Jr.,  Tioga,  Potter 

ami  McKean  Cos., 
JAMES  GAY  GORDON,  Philadel- 
phia Co., 
JAMES  SILL,  Erie  Co., 
EVAN  HOLBEN,  Lehigh  Co., 
J.    W.  LEE,  Warren  and  Venango  (Dos 
M.  L.  LOCKWOOD,  Clarion  Co.. 
P.  C.  NEWBAKER,  Montour  Co., 
W.  L.  HARBISON.  McKean  Co., 
GEORGE  E.  MAPES,  A'enango  Co., 
C.  W.  TYLER,  Crawford  Co., 
JOHN  H.  LANDIS,  Lancaster  Co., 
J.  B   NILES.  Tioga  Co  , 
CHARLES  TUBBS,  Tioga  Co., 
M.   F.  COOLBAUGH,  Monroe  Co., 


J.  W.  SCANLAN,  Northumberland  Co., 
A.  F.  McNULTY.  Lackawanna  Co., 
LEMUEL  AMERMAN.  Lackawanna 

Co.. 
J.  H.  MARSH,  Bradford  Co  , 
W.  B.  BENEDICT.  Warren  Co., 
,  ELLIS  MORRISON,  Lawrence  Co., 
H.  D.  LOWING,  Crawford  Co., 
S.  H.  WILSON,  Crawford  Co., 
ISAAC  B.  BROWN,  Erie  Co.. 
S.  H.  HAMM,  Clarion  Co., 
A.  SIEGER,  Lehigh  Co., 
W.  P.  BRAHAM,  Butler  Co., 
E.  L.  DAVIS,  Forest  Co., 
W.   R.  BIERLY.  Lycoming  Co., 
CHARLES  S.  WOLFE,  Union  Co. 


Philadelphia,  June  S,  1881. 
Gentlemen  : — 

I  have  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  valued  communication 
of  the  31st  ult.,  and  to  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  the  expression 
of  your  confidence  in  myself,  and  for  your  kind  wishes  for  the 
prosperity  of  the  great  interests  with  which  I  have  been  so  long 
connected. 

It  will  give  me  pleasure  to  respond  to  your  request,  by  deliver- 
ing, at  such  time  and  place  as  may  be  appointed  and  selected  for 
the  purpose,  an  address  upon  "  The  position  which  the  City  of 
Philadelphia  should  occupy  to  the  great  Commonwealth  of  which 
she  is  part,  to  its  Transportation  Lines,  and  to  the  Railway 
Problem  of  the  day." 

Believe  me,  Gentlemen,  with  great  respect, 

Your  obedient  servant. 


FRANKLIN  B.  GOWEN. 


Mr.  E.  C.  Knight  called  the  meeting  to  order,  and  said: 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : — It  affords  me  great  pleas- 
ure to  nominate  Major-General  Eobert  Patterson  to  pre- 
side at  the  meeting  this  evening. 

The  nomination  was  unanimously  agreed  to. 

]\Ir.  Knight. — I  need  not  introduce  General  Patterson  ; 
he  is  known  to  you  all. 

General  Patterson  (who  was  greeted  with  applause) 
said  : 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : — I  am  about  to  do  an  act 
which  certainly  is  not  necessary,  and  I  have  always  had  a 
great  objection  to  wasting  my  ammunition  {laughter']  ;  but 
custom  has  rendered  it,  I  believe,  necessary  that  the  gen- 
tleman who  is  to  address  the  meeting  should  be  introduced 
by  the  Chairman.  I  have  now  the  great  pleasure,  not  of 
introducing  to  you,  for  that  is  unnecessary,  but  of  present- 
ing to  you  a  man  who  is  known  in  every  city  and  State 
in  the  Union.  \_Great  applause^  You  know  now  who 
I  mean.  You  know  the  man  w^hose  courage  redeemed 
the  Schuylkill  region  from  a  set  of  robbers,  and  pirates, 
and  murderers  \_applause\  ;  the  only  man  in  this  State 
who  had  the  nerve,  the  ability,  and  the  perseverance  to  do 
it.  I  present  to  you,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  Franklin  B. 
GowTu. 

Mr.  Franklin  B.  Gowen  (who  was  greeted  with  great 
applause)  said : 

Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: — I  am  to 
speak  to-night  upon  the  position  which  this  great  City  of 
Philadelphia  should  occupy  to  the  Commonwealth  of  whicli 
she  is  a  part,  to  the  transportation  lines  of  that  Common- 
wealth, and  to  what  I  have  called  the  great  railroad  prob- 
lem of  the  day  ;  and,  without  further  introduction,  I  shall 
take  up  these  three  subjects  in  the  order  in  which  I  have 
presented  them  to  you. 

First,  with  reference  to  the  position  which  the  City  of 
Philadelphia  should  occupv  to  the  Commonwealth.     She 
2       ^  V  C5) 


6 

.should  be  the  coininereial  and  intellectual  metropolis  of 
the  Commonwealth.  The  City  of  Philadelphia  should  he 
the  factor  of  the  products  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Penn- 
sylvania. Within  this  great  State  of  Pennsylvania  there 
is  such  wealth  that,  if  it  could  have  been  collected  and 
distributed  from  Philadelphia,  it  would  have  made  the  City 
of  Philadelphia  to-day  what  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago, 
the  first  city  of  the  United  States  of  America.   \^Applause.^ 

The  State  of  Pennsylvania  is  a  great  empire.  It  has 
an  area  equal  to  that  of  England  and  Wales  together.  It 
has  coal  fields  within  its  borders  of  very  nearly  twice  the 
extent  of  all  that  England  and  Wales  put  together  con- 
tain. It  has  iron  wealth  and  iron  resources  double,  aye, 
treble  those  of  all  England  and  Wales  together.  It  has 
forests  which  are  to-day  almost  as  productive  as  they  were, 
fifty  years  ago.  It  has  broad  areas  of  farm  land,  the 
richest  that  ever  God's  sun  shone  upon.  Over  and  be- 
yond all  this,  it  has  a  great  population  of  God-fearing, 
law-abiding  citizens,  a  population  collected  in  the  New 
World,  and  embracing  all  the  great  races  of  the  Old  World. 
The  Saxon  and  the.  Celt,  the  Teuton  and  the  Gaul,  have 
here  united  to  mingle  their  blood  and  to  produce  one 
common  stock  that  may  be  looked  upon  with  pride  as  the 
best  specimen  of  the  best  type  of  that  distinctive  American 
race  which  is  to-  become  the  glory  of  the  Western  Hemi- 
sphere.    l^AppIa  iise.^ 

I  can  say,  truly,  that  the  City  of  Philadelphia  has 
neglected  its  State  ;  that  while  the  wealth,  the  ability,  and 
the  enterprise  of  this  City  have  been  directed  beyond  the 
State  to  secure  the  commerce  of  the  West,  the  city  of  New 
York  has  come  in  through  the  side  door,  and  taken  away 
from  us  the  great  and  growing  commerce  of  Pennsylvania. 
It  is  not  alone  the  commerce  of  the  West  that  has  built 
up  New  York  as  against  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  but 
while  we  have  been  struggling  to  secure  the  evanescent 
glory  of  western  commerce,  New  York  City  has  been 
built  up  by  the  products  of  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
which  her  own  City  has  neglected.  It  was  not  so  fifty 
years  ago.  The  wise  men  who  lived  in  this  City  in  those 
early  days  |)rojected  a  system  of  railway  communication 
intended'  to  |)lace  the  City  of  Philadelphia  in  connection 


with  almost  every  develojx'd  portion  of  the  Commoii- 
weahh.  The  great  Pennsylvania  Railroad  was  projected 
to  the  AVest  to  connect  Pittsburgh  with  Philadelphia ;  the 
Reading  Railroad  was  projected  to  connect  the  Schuylkill 
coal  fields  with  the  City  of  Philadelphia ;  the  Sunbury 
and  Erie  Railway  was  surveyed  in  early  times  for  the 
})urpose  of  connecting  the  great  Lakes  and  the  commerce 
of  those  Lakes  w^ith  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  so  that  the 
!-^tate  of  Pennsylvania  should  have  its  port  upon  the 
Atlantic  and  its  port  upon  the  Lakes.  The  North  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  w^as  23rojected  for  the  purpose  of  reach- 
ing northward  through  the  mineral  lands  of  the  Lehigh 
A^alley  up  to  the  coal  fields  of  the  Lehigh  and  the  Wyo- 
ming regions. 

In  the  progress  of  time  these  four  great  avenues  of  com- 
munication have  become  consolidated  and  crystallized  into 
two,  and  we  have  now  terminating  in  the  City  of  Philadel- 
pliia  but  tw^o  railway  systems.  One  of  these  is  the  Phila- 
delphia and  Reading,  and  the  other  is  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad.  All  the  others  have  become  incorporated  and 
merged  into  these  two,  and  to-day,  wdiatever  w^e  may  look 
forward  to  for  developing  and  increasing  the  prosperity 
of  the  City  of  Philadelj)hia ,  as  resulting  from  its  inter- 
course with  the  outer  world,  we  must  look  forward  to  as 
coming  over  the  lines  of  communication  that  are  owned 
by  but  two  companies. 

The  Philadelphia  and  Reading  Railroad  owns  a  system 
covering  816  miles  of  railway,  all  w^ithin  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania.  The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  owns  1,953 
miles  of  railway  located  within  the  borders  of  the  State. 
The  freight  tonnage  of  the  Reading  Railroad  is  14,000,000 
of  tons ;  that  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, is  15,360,000  tons.  The  number  of  passengers 
carried  by  the  Reading  Railroad  Company,  in  the  State 
of  Pennsylvania,  was  last  year  9,703,473 ;  the  number 
carried  by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  in  the  State,  was 
7,757,940.  The  total  debt  and  capital  of  the  Reading 
Railroad  is  $127,000,000,  every  portion  of  which  is  in- 
vested in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  The  entire  debt  and 
capital  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  is,  or  was 
])rior  to  its  recent  increase,  $154,000,000,  and  out  of  that 


8 

amount  they  have  paid  for  some  $86,000,000  of  securities 
of  railway  lines  existino;  beyond  the  limits  of  the  State. 
Xow  I  hold  that  the  future  prosperity  of  the  City  of  Phil- 
adelphia will  he  protected,  improved,  and  increased  more 
by  the  development  of  the  State  itself  than  by  the  devel- 
opment of  any  industry  beyond  the  State.  If  a  Chinese 
wall  had  been  built  around  the  borders  of  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania,  so  that  there  could  have  been  no  exit  from 
or  entrance  to  it  for  commerce  except  over  the  ocean,  and 
over  the  lakes,  and  over  those  great  rivers  which  God  has 
given  us  to  bear  the  commerce  of  the  world  ;  and  if  all  th(^ 
products  of  Pennsylvania  could  have  been  turned  int<i 
the  City  of  Philadelphia  ;  I  say  that  Philadelphia  to-day 
w^ould  he  a  city  of  twice  the  magnitude  of  the  City  of  New 
York.     l^Greaf  applause.'] 

While  the  Reading  Railroad  Company  has  done  nothing 
except  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  the  [)roducts  of  Penn- 
sylvania into  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  what  has  been  th(^ 
policy  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company?  Upon 
this  subject  I  propose  to  speak  with  great  candor,  to  ma  ki- 
no personal  attack,  but  to  speak  boldly  of  systems  and 
projects  and  business  enterprises,  so  that  the  calm  considei*- 
ation  of  the  citizens  of  Philadelphia  can  be  directed  to  a 
problem  which  to  me  is  of  almost  gigantic  magnitude. 
lA2)pIause.'] 

If  you  will  look  at  the  large  map  which  is  back  of  me, 
you  will  see  in  red  colors  the  lines  of  the  Reading  Rail- 
road ;  in  black  you  will  see  the  lines  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  ;  in  dark  blue  you  will  see  the  lines  that  are  in 
opposition  to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  but  which  secure 
entrances  into  the  City  of  Philadelphia  by  means  of  the 
Reading  Railroad ;  and  you  will  see  shaded  in  yellow  or 
in  orange  many  lines  running  from  the  eastern  portion  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  especially  from  its  coal  fields,  to  take 
the  wealth  of  Pennsylvania  in  minerals  to  the  City  of 
New  York,  instead  of  bringing  it  to  the  City  of  Phila- 
delphia. 

While  there  are  no  lines  of  the  Reading  Railroad  that 
were  built  with  any  other  view  than  to  develop  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  to  bring  the  commerce  of  the  State  to  its  chief 
city,  I  say  that  the  policy  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 


9 

has  not  only  been  to  sacrifice  Pennsylvania  for  the  pur- 
pose of  securing  western  lines,  but  that  the  policy  of  that 
Company  in  many  instances,  to  which  I  now  propose  to 
call  vour  attention,  has  been  to  secure  avenues  of  transpor- 
tation, and  cover  the  ground  for  railroads  in  the  State  of 
Pennsvlvania  for  no  other  purpose  whatever  than  to  pre- 
vent business  being  done  upon  them. 

Take  the  Philadelphia  and  Erie  (formerly  tlie  Sunbury 
and  Erie  Railroad)  as  the  great  example  of  this  policy. 
That  road  was  the  main  thoroughfere  from  the  coal  fields 
of  Pennsylvania  to  the  Lakes.  It  is,  as  it  were,  the 
hypothenuse  of  a  right-angled  triangle,  of  which  the  New 
York  main  lines  constitute  the  base  and  the  several  lines 
extending  southward  from  them  at  right  angles  into  the 
heart  of  Pennsylvania,  constitute  the  altitude.  The  Phila- 
delphia and  Erie  Railroad  was  the  line  over  which  all  the 
coal  of  Pennsylvania  seeking  an  outlet  through  the  Lakes, 
should  have  gone. 

AVhat  is  the  result  ?  Although  this  line  was  the  first 
built ;  although  it  afforded  direct  communication  from  the 
Pennsylvania  coal  fields  to  the  Lakes  ;  although  it  had 
the  first  chance  to  secure  the  business,  and  might  have 
had  it  all ;  and  although  if  it  had  it  all,  it  would  have 
inured  greatly  to  the  j^rosperity  and  wealth  of  the  people 
who  owned  that  line,  yet  you  will  be  astonished  to  know 
that  in  the  year  1879  there  were  shipped  from  Erie,  the 
terminus  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Erie  Railroad,  only 
159,000  tons  of  Pennsylvania  anthracite  coal,  while  from 
the  rival  port  of  Buffalo,  to  reach  which  the  trade  has  to 
be  carried  over  two  sides  of  the  triangle,  there  were  shipped 
904,000  tons. 

It  is  a  most  remarkable  fact,  that  a  line  planned  and 
built  by  the  people  of  this  State,  for  the  development  of 
her  industries,  has  been  seized  hold  of  by  a  great  corpora- 
tion for  the  purpose  of  preventing  any  industry  going- 
over  it.  Why  ?  Simply  because  (and  1  say  this  without 
fear  of  contradiction,  and  I  am  able  to  furnish  the  proof), 
if  that  industry  had  been  developed,  it  would  have  injured 
some  of  the  pet  industries  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad, 
which  the  ring  that  has  managed  that  corporation  conducts 
for  its  own  benefit.     [^4|?/)/aw.sp.] 


10 

If  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  had  bought  thi.s 
railroad  boldly  and  honestly,  and  paid  for  it,  they  would 
have  had  a  right,  so  far  as  the  sliareholders  of  the  com- 
pany were  concerned,  to  do  what  they  pleased  Avitli  it. 
But  how  did  they  get  possession  of  the  road  ?  In  the  year 
1862,  when  they  had  but  a  small  proportion  of  its  capital, 
they  made  a  lease  of  it,  which,  so  far  as  I  can  see  by  read- 
ing it,  was  a  very  excellent  one  for  both  parties.  It  was 
a  lease  by  which  they  were  to  give  thirty  per  cent,  of  the 
gross  receipts  of  the  company  forever,  to  the  shareholders 
who  owned  it,  and  keep  seventy  per  cent,  for  the  cost  of 
working  it,  and  for  their  own  profit. 

That  was  a  fair,  honest,  open  lease,  good  for  both  imv- 
ties,  and  whatever  future  increase  of  traffic  there  would 
have  been  secured  would  have  inured  to  the  benefit  of  both 
parties.  But  in  the  year  1870,  eight  years  afterwards, 
when  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  owned  only  31,000  shares 
of  the  stock,  when  the  City  of  Philadelphia  owned  45,000, 
and  when  the  outside  public  and  one  western  corporation 
owned  together  90,000  shares,  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company,  with  the  influence  they  exercised  over  the  Coun- 
cils of  this  City,  procured  Councils  to  unite  with  them  in 
changing  the  terms  of  the  lease,  so  that  for  the  remainder 
of  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  years,  instead  of  pay- 
ing thirty  per  cent,  upon  its  gross  receipts,  they  were 
obliged  simply  to  pay  whatever  they  chose  to  permit  it  to 
earn  ;  and  since  that  time,  gentlemen,  you  know  very  well 
it  has  never  earned  anything,  and  its  debt  has  been  in- 
creased $8,000,000. 

This  portion  of  Pennsylvania  is  to  some  extent  almost 
a  desert.  Let  me  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  in 
the  year  1870,  when  that  lease  was  changed,  the  tonnage 
of  the  line  was  1,614,000  tons;  in  the  year  1880,  it  in- 
creased to  4,861,000,  or  nearly  three  times  as  much;  and 
yet,  though  the  traffic  had  increased  tliree  times,  the  gross 
receipts  which  in  1870  were  |8,144,000,  were  in  1880 
but  $8,700,000,  or  but  little  increase  whatever. 

Here,  then,  is  the  first  instance  to  which  I  have  to  call 
your  attention  where  a  railroad  has  been  not  bought  and 
paid  for,  but  secured  and  captured  by  that  system  of 
manipulating  the  Councils  of  this  City,  which  some  of 


11 

these  gentlemen  so  well  understand.  It  has  been  taken 
away  from  its  owners,  the  terms  of  its  contract  changed, 
its  tonnage  has  increased  three  hundred  per  cent.,  and  its 
gross  receipts  have  increased  little  or  nothing,  whereas  its 
debt  has  increased  $8,400,000,  the  interest  on  which  must 
be  paid  before  the  shareholders  get  anything.  The  whole 
section  of  Pennsylvania  through  which  it  runs,  and  the 
people  who  own  it,  have  been  injured,  simply  because  if 
that  road  had  been  permitted  to  do  business,  it  would 
have  become  a  rival  to  some  of  the  industries  that  are 
located  upon  or  prosper  by  the  use  of  the  main  line  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad. 

Let  me  next  call  your  attention  to  the  line  which  is  known 
as  the  Low  Grade  line,  leading  along  Bennett's  Branch, 
and  via  the  Allegheny  Valley  to  Pittsburgh.  The  last 
year  I  was  at  the  bar,  some  thirteen  years  ago,  I  had  a 
client  named  Eeuben  Winslow.  He  had  a  large  and  a 
valuable  estate  in  the  middle  of  Pennsylvania.  He  was 
anxious  to  develop  his  property.  He  located  a  line  of 
railroad,  commenced  to  grade  it,  and  his  only  object  under 
Heaven  was  by  his  own  resources,  by  his  own  means,  by  the 
indomitable  energy  which  God  had  given  him,  to  develop 
the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  to  increase  the  value  of  his  own 
family  estate  by  building  a  railroad  that  could  connect,  if 
necessary,  even  with  the  very  Pennsylvania  system  itself, 
for  the  purpose  of  transporting  coal  and  other  products. 
The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  was  at  that  time  supremely 
powerful.  With  force  and  arms,  its  servants  went  upon  Mr. 
Winslow's  property  and  wrested  it  from  him.  They  de- 
stroyed his  works.  "^  They  laid  their  own  rails  upon  his 
location.  Like  thieves  in  the  night  they  came  upon  him, 
as  it  were,  with  armed  men,  and  took  away  from  him  the 
product  of  his  own  industry,  and  he  knew  it  was  useless 
in  this  State  to  contend  with  so  powerful  a  corporation. 
They  robbed  him  of  his  property,  they  laid  this  Low 
Grade  line  upon  that  which  belonged  to  him,  and  I  tell 
you  from  that  time  to  to-day  the  curse  of  God  seems  to 
have  rested  upon  tbat  Low  Grade  line;  it  has  done  but 
little  business,  and  the  object  of  its  construction,  doubtless, 
was  to  prevent  business  from  being  done.  Mr.  Winslow 
came  to  me  during  his  struggle,  and  I  was  very  much  in- 


12 

terested  in  liim  and  in  his  case,  and  if  I  liad  remained  at 
the  bar  I  would  have  done  what  I  could  to  have  either 
saved  his  projjerty  or  to  have  recovered  damages  for  its 
destruction  ;  but  they  robbed  him  of  it ;  they  harassed  his 
life,  and  at  last,  as  a  ghastly  termination  to  that  life  which 
they  had  rendered  miserable,  I  learned  that  he  was  killed 
in  an  accident  upon  their  own  road.  Their  success  was 
complete ;  they  secured  the  line  which  belonged  to  him, 
])ut  it  arrested  the  development  of  that  portion  of  Penn- 
sylvania. AVhy?  Because  had  they  permitted  the  coal  of 
that  region  to  have  free  access  to  market  it  Avould  have 
injured  the  profits  of  somebody  who  was  mining  else- 
where, and  whom,  for  reasons  best  known  to  themselves, 
they  had  determined  to  protect. 

I  kuow  a  gentleman  of  our  own  City  who  has  an  estate 
covering  sixteen  miles  in  length  upon  or  near  to  the  lines 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Pailroad,  and  for  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  he  has  been  struggling  to  develop  his  great  property, 
and  he  has  not  only  been  unable  to  do  it,  but  his  life  has 
been  made  miserable  by  that  system  which  prevents  the 
development  of  Pennsylvania  industry  for  fear  that  com- 
petition might  interfere  with  the  profits  of  some  others,  who 
have  always  had  a  first  lien  upon  the  protective  consider- 
ation of  the  officers  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Com- 
pany. Many  years  ago  I  became  interested  as  part  owner 
in  some  coal  lands  in  the  lower  portion  of  Luzerne  Coun- 
ty, and  the  only  line  of  raili'oad  thi'ough  them  is  a  line 
which  now  belongs  to  and  always  did  connect  with  the 
system  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  They  are  the  near- 
est coal  lands  to  the  north,  and  they  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  a  number  of  gentlemen  of  Canada,  who,  seeing  the 
growth  of  the  anthracite  coal  business,  were  anxious  to 
become  the  owners  of  coal  land  in  Pennsylvania,  so  as  to 
secure  a  production  for  the  Canadian  markets.  They 
naturally  preferred  such  as  was  located  at  the  point  most 
accessible  to  their  market.  They  discovered  that  the 
lands  I  refer  to  were  the  best  located,  and  they  came  to 
me.  This  was  six  or  eight  years  ago.  They  came  to  me 
to  say  that  they  were  anxious  to  take  a  lease  of  the  lands; 
that  they  wouhl  spend  $2()(),(M)0  upon  them  ;  they  would 
develop  them  and  pay  whatever  rent  was  fail',  and  I  tol<l 


lo 

them  we  could  make  a  bargain  witli  them  in  five  minutes. 
It  was  exactly  what  we  wanted.  They  then  said,  "  But 
how  about  transportion  ?"  "Well,"  I  replied,  "with  that 
I  have  nothing  to  do ;  the  land  ii^  upon  the  lines  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Eailroad,  and  you  must  go  to  that  com- 
pany." 

They  saw  officials  of  that  company,  and  in  an  hour  or 
two  they  returned,  and  told  me  that  the  rates  of  trans- 
portation given  to  them  were  such  that  if  they  mined  the 
coal  and  sent  it  to  Canada,  and  sold  it  at  the  then  market 
price,  they  wonld  lose  one  dollar  a  ton.  But  they  were 
told  that  if  they  would  not  go  into  the  business  of  selling 
coal  themselves,  but  would  mine  it  and  sell  it  to  a  certain 
other  company  or  party  that  was  named,  who  had  trans- 
portation rates  that  enabled  them  to  do  business,  they 
could  mine  the  coal  and  sell  it,  and  make  a  profit  of  fifty 
cents  a  ton.  As  their  primary  object  was  to  engage  in  the 
l)usiness  of  selling  coal  in  Canada,  they  gave  up  the 
enterprise,  and  those  lands  remained  practically  idle  for  a 
great  number  of  years. 

Look  at  the  wealth  in  coal  of  Pennsylvania  that  has 
gone  to  the  City  of  New  York.  The  Reading  Railroad 
mvns  90,000  acres  of  coal  land,  and  all  the  product  comes 
to  the  City  of  Philadelphia.  But  there  are  New  York 
companies  who,  together,  own  and  control  of  Pennsyl- 
vania anthracite  land  about  100,000  acres,  and  they  have 
l>ought  this  land — the  heart  of  Pennsylvania — have  built 
railroads  leading  over  its  mountains,  uj)  hill  and  down 
dale  ;  not  folio  win  o-  the  natural  courses  of  the  vallevs  to 
the  City  of  Philadelphia,  but  they  have  surmounted  the 
barriers  of  the  mountains,  and  constructed  their  lines  in 
order  to  take  the  wealth  of  Pennsylvania  to  add  to  the 
growing  commerce  of  the  City  of  New  York.  AVliat  is 
the  result  ?  Why,  gentlemen,  last  year  there  were  shipped 
of  Pennsvlvania  anthracite  from  the  City  of  Xew  York, 
7,674,000  tons,  and  from  the  City  of  Philadelphia  there 
were  shipped  only  2,400,000  tons.  Here,  then,  is  the 
wealth  of  this  State  taken  from  you  while  you  sleep,  by 
the  energy  and  the  capital  and  the  enterprise  of  Xew 
York.  AVhile  the  great  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company, 
that  claims  to  be  the  guardian  of  your  interests,  has  been 


14 

shutting  her  eyes  to  any  wealth,  except  that  which  hiy 
beyond  the  borders  of  the  State,  the  wisdom,  the  ability, 
the  forethought,  and  energy  of  New  York  have  enabled 
it  to  overcome  all  natural  obstacles,  and  to  capture  the 
greatest  portion  of  that  vast  mineral  wealth  which  God 
located  almost  upon  the  borders  of  your  City. 

From  coal  let  me  turn  to  the  oil  trade : — 

There  is  no  State  except  Pennsylvania  that  produces  oil 
in  any  great  quantity.  There  is  some  little  in  New  York, 
and  there  is  some  little  in  West  Virginia,  and  there  may 
be  local  deposits  in  other  States ;  but  the  great  oil  product 
of  this  country  comes  from  the  State  of  Pennsylvania.  It 
is  a  peculiar  product.  Stored  up  in  the  almost  inacces- 
sible bowels  of  the  earth  is  this  great  illuminating  power, 
which  is  being  used  all  over  the  civilized  world.  The 
whole  world  demands  this  oil,  and  is  a  ready  customer 
looking  for  its  exportation.  Tlie  wealth  of  this  deposit  of 
oil,  if  utilized  for  the  benefit  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia, 
would  have  been  worth  alone  twice  as  much  as  all  the 
western  grain  that  is  brought  to  the  City  for  shipment  to 
Europe. 

The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  with  its  system 
of  roads,  was  the  nearest  to  the  oil  regions.  It  had  the 
best  opportunities  of  securing  the  oil  trade.  None  other 
could  have  successfully  competed  with  it.  It  had  advan- 
tages of  grades,  and  advantages  of  location,  and  the  great 
advantage  of  citizenship  of  the  same  State,  and  there  was 
everything  to  give  it,  in  the  struggle  for  supremacy,  the 
power  to  control  all  of  its  competitors. 

Well,  gentlemen,  last  year  there  were  shipped  from  the 
City  of  New  York  to  foreign  countries,  of  Pennsylvania 
petroleum,  7,151,274  barrels,  and  from  tlie  City  of  Phila- 
delphia there  were  shipped  1,620,601  barrels.  There 
were  refined  in  the  City  of  New  York,  of  crude  petroleum, 
last  year  8,293,960  barrels.  In  the  City  of  Cleveland, 
away  out  in  Ohio,  there  were  refined  of  Pennsylvania 
petroleum  2,139,840  barrels,  and  here,  in  the  commercial 
metropolis  of  the  great  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania, 
here  within  our  very  borders,  within  tlie  State  where  this 
oil  is  found,   here   in   Philadelphia,   to  whose   port  this 


15 

wealth  of  oil  should  have  been  directed,  there  were  reiined 
Vmt  1,783,7(30  barrels  only.  Why  was  this?  Echo  an- 
swers, why;  but  the  priests  who  minister  in  the  temple  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  could,  if  they  wanted 
to,  solve  the  question  presented  by  the  array  of  figures  to 
which  I  have  called  your  attention. 

Gentlemen,  as  many  of  you  know,  the  Reading 
Railroad  Company  was*^  instrumental,  two  or  three  years 
ago,  in  securing  the  construction  of  a  pipe  line  from  the 
oil  region  to  its  railroad ;  but  even  before  that  pipe  line 
was  completed,  we  attempted  to  force  the  product  of 
Pennsylvania  oil  into  the  heart  of  Philadelphia.  There 
were  refineries  erected  here  that  were  idle;  there  were 
refineries  that  could  get  no  oil  to  refine;  there  were 
refineries  owned  by  men  of  capital  and  men  of  enterprise, 
located  here  in  yoiir  midst,  whose  owners  might  have  gone 
down  upon  their  knees,  in  vain,  to  beg  the  powder  that 
controlled  the  great  highway  of  the  commerce  of  Phila- 
delphia and  of  Pennsylvania  to  transport  their  crude  oil 
to  Philadelphia.  They  applied  to  us,  and  we  determined 
to  break  the  barrier,  if  we  could,  at  all  hazards.  Without 
asking  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  who  had  seized  a  mile 
of  road  on  the  west  of  the  Schuylkill  river,  over  which 
we  had  to  pass  to  reach  the  refineries,  we  commenced  to 
ship  oil  to  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  in  the  hope  that  we 
could  open  a  trade  w^th  the  oil  refiners  within  her 
borders.     \^A2)2)lause.~\ 

Gentlemen,  mark  the  result.  I  read  from  a  copy  of  an 
ofiicial  document  emanating  from  the  ofiice  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  Company : 

Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company, 

Office  of  General  Freight  Agent. 


Philadelphia,  April  11,  18 


/  / 


J.  Lowrie  Bell,  Esq.  [Mr.  Bell  was  then  General 
Freight  Agent  of  the  Reading  Railroad].  We  under- 
stand that  several  car  loads  of  oil  have  passed  over  our 
line,  between  Belmont  and  Gibson's  Point,  and  that  others 
are  to  follow.     This  being  entirely  a  new  business,  and 


16 

strictly  comi^etitive  with  our  line,  we  hereby  notify  you 
that  a  charge  of  twenty  (20)  dollars  per  car  Will  be"^  made 
on  each  car  for  passing  over  the  track  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Kailroad,  for  the  present.  Mr.  Pugh  has  been  instructed 
to  collect  this  amount. 

(Signed)  S.  B.  KINGSTOX, 

General  Freight  Agent. 

Twenty  dollars  a  car  for  passing  eighty  barrels  of  oil 
over  one  mile ;  twenty-five  cents  per  barrel  for  passing 
over  one  mile,  when  the  utmost  the  law  allowed  them  to 
charge  was  about  half  a  ^cent  per  barrel.  The  extreme 
limit  for  one  mile  would  be  little  over  half  a  cent,  and 
they  charged  twenty-five  cents  a  barrel ;  and  when  they 
had  been  carrying  oil  into  the  City  of  New  York  at  from 
fifteen  to  twenty  cents  a  barrel,  for  500  miles  of  transpor- 
tation. They  charged  us,  or  attempted  to  charge  us, 
twenty-five  cents  a  barrel  for  j^assing  over  one  mile  in 
the  City  of  Philadelphia,  that  it  w^as  necessary  to  pass 
over  in  order  to  reach  the  refineries  whose  owners  were 
endeavoring  to  secure  this  business  of  refining  oil  for 
Philadelphia.  \_Applause.']  AVe  stopped.  What  "could  we 
do  ?  We  could  have  gone  to  law  with  them,  and  in  five 
or  six  years  we  might  have  got  a  judgment  against  them, 
and  then,  if  the  Supreme  Court  would  liave  let  the  judg- 
ment alone,  we  might  have  got  fifteen  or  twenty  dollars 
damages  for  the  detention  to  the  particular  consignment 
mentioned  in  Mr.  Kingston's  notice.  {Laughter  and  ap- 
plause.'] In  all  such  fights  as  that,  I  had  long  ago  made 
up  my  mind  that  discretion  was  the  better  part  of  valor, 
and  I  hoj^ed  that  at  some  time  or  other  the  arena  for 
this  struggle  would  be  transferred  to  the  public,  and  I 
could  come  before  the  public,  and,  by  its  aid,  secure  the 
rights  which  I  had  been  vainly  striving  to  get  from  the 
constituted  authorities  of  the  Commonwealth.  \_Ap- 
2)lause.] 

So  we  waited  until  the  pipe  line  was  completed ;  but  in 
1879  we  attempted  to  send  some  of  the  first  products  of 
the  pipe  line  over  this  mile,  this  sacred  mile  of  railroad, 
wliich  is  subjected  to  the  awful  supremacy  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  Company.    We  again  encroached  upon 


17 

her  hallowed  precincts.  AVe  traiif^ported  oil,  the  prodiu-t  < if 
the  pipe  line  that  came  to  lis  at  Williamsport  and  was 
again  consigned  to  a  Philadelphia  refiner,  and  from  the 
office  of  the  General  Agent  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroa<l 
there  emanated  the  following  epistle  : 

AVest  Philadelphia,  June  11,  1871>. 

Dear  Sir: — By  direction  of  our  Third  Vice-President. 
I  am  instructed  to  make  a  rate  of  S12.50  per  car  on  your 
tank  cars  loaded  with  oil  from  West  Philadelphia  to 
Greenwich.  This  rate  to  take  effect  commencing  to-mor- 
rows June  12th.     Please  acknowledge  receipt. 

(Signed)  O.  E.  McCLELLAX. 

General  Agent. 

Well,  gentlemen,  we  were  blocked  again.  The  owners 
of  the  reiineries  that  were  erected  on  the  lower  Schuylkill 
in  vour  City  discovered  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  any 
oil  whatever,  and  they  learned  by  sad  exjierience,  which 
some  of  them  were  wise  enough  to  profit  from,  that  the 
main  object  of  building  a  refinery  in  the  City  of  Philadel- 
phia was  to  sell  it  to  the  Standard  Oil  C  ompany  and  take 
a  salarv  for  keeping  it  idle,  so  that  the  oil  could  be  refined 
in  Cleveland  and  in  the  City  of  New  York,  without  any 
interference  by  citizens  of  Philadelphia ;  and  when  these 
gentlemen  had  sold  their  refineries  and  accepted  a  salary 
from  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  of  course,  they  did  not 
want  any  oil  from  us.  Then  we  were  in  the  position 
of  a  great  transporting  company  that  had  spent  a  vast 
amount  of  money  to  bring  a  great  product  to  its  Philadel- 
phia terminus,  and  had  found  that  the  refining  establish- 
ments, who  had  been  begging  us  to  give  it  to  them,  became 
the  cohorts  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  which  I  believe 
at  that  time  was  an  alias  under  which  some  of  the  officers 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Eailroad  Company  transacted  busi- 
ness. lAppIause.']  We  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  secure 
the  construction  of  an  independent  refinery,  and  sueli  a 
refinery  was  built  at  Chester,  and  whatever  product  of  oil 
there  is  now  credited  to  the  City  of  Philadelphia  is  very 


18 

greatly  due  to  that  large  refining  establishment  which  has 
l)een  built  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Kailroad  C/Ompany,  and  against  the  fiat  of  the  Standard 
Oil  Company. 

So  much  for  the  products  of  Pennsylvania  going  to 
New  York  and  to  other  cities.  What,  then,  has  been  the 
policy  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad?  It  has  been  to 
develop  western  enterprises.  While  New  York  has  been 
t-apturing  the  cream  of  Pennsylvania  products,  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  has  been  going  after  the  barren  husks  of 
western  commerce  to  bring  to  the  City  of  Philadelphia  for 
transshipment  to  Europe.  And  Avhat  does  it  amount  to? 
What  have  they  given  us?  Let  us  examine  the  statistics. 
What  have  they  given  to  the  City  of  Philadelphia  in  ex- 
change for  the  products  of  our  own  State,  which  she  might 
have  had  the  control  of,  and  from  which  she  might  have 
derived  such  large  profits? 

I  am  reminded  here,  and  have  forgotten  to  mention  it 
at  the  proper  place,  that  a  few  months  ago,  when  I  had  to 
look  into  the  future  without  knowing  very  well,  until  I 
heard  from  the  Courts,  whether  I  was  President  of  the  Read- 
ing Railroad  Company  or  not;  when  I  had  to  look  about, 
not  for  a  new  profession,  but  to  recommence  the  practice 
of  the  old,  some  of  my  friends  in  New  York  said  to  me, 
"  Gowen,  wdiy  don't  you  come  over  to  New  York  and  prac- 
tice law  ?"  I  replied,  "  I  don't  know^  much  about  New 
York  law,  but  I  know  a  great  deal  about  Pennsylvania 
law,  and  I  love  Pennsylvania ;  I  know  its  people  ;  1  know 
a  great  deal  about  its  business,  and  I  think  I  had  better 
stay  at  home."  "Well,"  they  said,  "  that  is  the  very  reason 
we  want  you  over  here ;  don't  you  know  that  there  is 
more  Pennsylvania  business  to-day  transacted  in  the  City 
of  New  York,  three  times  over,  than  in  the  whole  City  of 
i*hiladelphia?  and  that  is  the  reason  we  want  a  man  who 
knows  something  about  it,  to  locate  amongst  us."  And  I 
was  compelled,  with  some  degree  of  shame  and  humiliation, 
to  admit  that  there  was  a  great  degree  of  truth  in  the  boast ; 
that  Philadelphia  had,  indeed,  lost  the  business  of  its  own 
State,  and  that  it  had  gone  to  a  neighboring  city. 

The  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  has  been  hunting 
western  business,  and  what  has  it  secured?    Its  own  reports 


19 

show  that  of  its  own  capital  it  has  some  .S36,0()0,000  in  west- 
ern lines.  A  report,  made  by  the  company  four  years  ago. 
stated  that  the  capital  of  all  the  lines  west  of  Pennsylvania, 
which  it  owned  and  controlled,  amonnted  to  >^200,()00,U00. 
I  do  not  know  what  it  is  now.  We  may  safely  assume  that, 
taking  the  whole  vast  system  of  the  Pennsylvania  Eailroad 
Company  all  over  the  United  States,  it  has  more  capital 
invested  west  of  Pennsylvania  than  it  has  invested  in  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania  itself. 

AVhat  does  it  get  from  their  investment  ?  Last  year  its 
entire  western  business  was  13 i  per  cent,  of  its  total  re- 
ceipts, the  remaining  862  per  cent,  being  local  Pennsyl- 
vania traffic.  Although  the  amount  of  capital  invested  in 
the  West  is  as  great  as  that  invested  in  Pennsylvania,  it 
produced  for  the  benefit  of  the  Pennsylvania  line  but  13* 
per  cent,  of  the  gross  business  and  gross  receij^ts  of  that 
great  corporation.  That  is  a  very  small  quantity.  But 
let  us  see,  out  of  that  small  quantity,  what  it  gave  to  the 
City  of  Philadelphia.  Many  of  you  who  are  unacquainted 
witli  the  figures  will  probably  be  astonished  to  know  that 
the  grain  business  last  year  from  the  City  of  Xew  York 
was  143,856,040  bushels ;  from  the  City  of  Baltimore  it 
was  54,722,872 ;  from  the  Citv  of  Philadelphia  it  was 
30,061,000—30,000,000  out  of  228,000,000 ! 

But,  gentlemen,  out  of  the  30,061,000  bushels  shipped 
from  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  the  Reading  Railroad  Com- 
pany itself  shipped  13,597,000  bushels,  and  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  Company  only  16,464,000  bushels.  In 
other  w^ords,  the  Reading  Railroad,  without  one  dollar  of 
capital  invested  in  the  West,  without  one  penny  involved 
or  at  stake,  and  without  saddling  its  Pennsylvania  busi- 
ness with  any  burden  to  enable  it  to  move  western  traffic, 
almost  in  the  infimcy  of  its  trade,  and  within  two  or  three 
years  after  it  made  its  first  connection  with  western  lines, 
has  shipped  from  the  City  of  Philadelphia  45  per  cent,  of 
all  its  foreign  commerce  in  grain.      \_Great  applause.^ 

But  what  has  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  done  for  the 
other  cities  ?  Last  year  it  shipped  to  New  York  8,908,565 
bushels  of  grain ;  it  shipped  to  the  City  of  Baltimore,  by 
its  Xorthern  Central  Railway,  24,625,292  bushels  of 
grain,  making  a  total  of  33,533,857  bushels  of  grain  wdiich 


20 

the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  shipped  to  Baltimore  and  Xew 
York  together,  w^hereas  to  the  City  of  Philadelphia  it  only 
shipped  1(3,464,000  bushels,  or  less  than  one-half  of  what 
it  gave  to  rival  cities.  And  I  say  to  you  that  your  eyes 
have  been  closed  to  what  has  been  going  on.  It  is  the  most 
chimerical  notion  in  the  world  that  all  this  enterprise  and 
all  this  money  that  have  been  devoted  and  expended  with  the 
approval  and  aj^probation  of  the  citizens  of  Philadelphia 
for  the  j^urpose  of  securing  western  grain,  have  been  of  es- 
pecial benefit  to  Philadelphia,  when  the  fact  is  that  the 
City  of  Philadelphia  only  secures  half  of  what  is  given  to 
the  other  two  cities.  A  larsje  manufacturino;  establish- 
ment  located  in  this  City,  like  the  great  locomotive  works 
of  Burnham,  Parry,  Williams  &  Co.,  or  any  kindred  in- 
dustry, is  worth  more  to  the  prosperity  of  the  City  of 
Philadelphia  than  all  the  foreign  grain  business  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  put  together.  \^^^p- 
plause.'\ 

But,  gentlemen,  at  what  rates  of  transp(jrtation  has  this 
western  grain  been  carried  ?  "You  have  but  to  turn  to  the 
newspapers  to  learn  this.  I  cannot  possibly  say  the  Phila- 
delphia papers,  because  the  mental  capacity  of  some  of  the 
editors  of  Philadelphia  papers  is  such  that  they  do  not 
like  to  be  disturbed  with  conflicting  opinions,  and  so  they 
only  furnish  one  side  of  any  question.  \_Laughter  and 
applause.^  A^ery  much  like  the  Judge,  who,  in  hearing 
a  case  of  some  importance,  after  the  first  counsel  had 
gotten  through,  said  :  "  I  do  not  want  any  more,  because  if 
I  hear  the  other  side,  my  mind  will  get  bothered  and  I 
will  not  know  how  to  decide,  but  now  it  is  all  on  one  side, 
and  I  can  decide  the  cause  without  any  difliculty  whatever.'' 
\_GTeat  laughter. ~\ 

So  you  do  not  always  get  the  facts  from  some  of  the 
Philadelphia  papers ;  but  if  you  read  some  of  the  other 
papers  you  will  find  that  often  and  often  this  great  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  has  been  carrying  western  freiglit 
through  your  City  at  one-half  the  actual  cost  of  transpor- 
tation. Now  who  pays  the  piper?  This  is  a  problem 
that  does  not  require  any  great  ability  to  solve,  althougli 
there  are  two  answers  to  it,  but  it  must  be  either  one  or 
the  other.     If  they  carry  thirteen  j^er  cent,  of  their  entire 


21 

traffic,  whieli  embraces  the  total  of  their  western  lousiness, 
through  the  borders  of  Pennsylvania,  at  one-half  the  sum 
that  it  costs  to  transport  it,  somebody  must  j^ay  the  differ- 
ence, and  it  must  be  either  the  shareholders  of  the  com- 
pany, who  got  less  dividends  than  they  would  have  gotten 
if  none  of  the  business  had  been  done  at  all,  or  it  is  paid 
for,  as  I  strongly  suspect  and  believe,  by  the  local  indus- 
tries of  Pennsylvania,  which  are  charged  more  than  would 
otherwise  be  necessary,  in  order  that  the  surplus  profits 
derived  from  the  overcharge  shall  make  up  the  loss  result- 
ing from  the  low  rates  at  which  the  western  business  has 
been  transported. 

I  have  always  been  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  fact,  that 
Avhen  the  great  States  of  the  West  were  thriving  at  the 
exj^ense  of  eastern  industry,  and  living,  as  it  were,  upon 
eastern  capital ;  when  corporation  after  corporation,  in  the 
wild  struggle  for  western  freights,  were  building  railroads 
and  projecting  lines  through  their  territory  ;  when  the 
capital  of  Europe  was  being  transferred  to  this  country 
for  the  purpose  of  developing  the  great  West ;  when  its 
products  were  being  carried  at  one-half  of  the  cost  of  trans- 
portation to  eastern  cities,  for  transshipment  to  Europe — 
that  such  a  thing  as  the  Granger  agitation  should  have 
arisen  in  the  West,  directed  against  the  railroad  com- 
panies. I  could  well  have  understood  how  a  granger 
element  could  have  arisen  in  Pennsylvania  ;  I  could  have 
understood  how  the  industries  of  Pennsylvania  might  have 
resented  this  unnecessary  and  unjust  taxation  imposed 
upon  them,  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  Pennsylvania 
Kailroad  Company  to  transact  its  western  business  at  a 
loss  ;  but  I  could  not  understand  how  the  western  people, 
who  reaped  the  benefit  and  secured  the  reward,  could  find 
it  in  their  hearts  to  complain  of  the  railroad  companies 
that  were  doing  them  such  great  service. 

But  this  is  not  all.  After  the  Pennsylvania  Eailroad 
had  gotten  all  these  western  lines  ;  after  it  had  secured  all 
this  business,  it  found  that  it  was  necessary  to  take  it,  not 
to  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  but  to  the  City  of  New  York. 
That  was  perfectly  right  ;  I  do  not  object  to  that.  They 
had  a  right  to  do  it,  but  how  did  they  do  it  ?  and  at  what 
3 


22 

cost  to  themselves  or  to  the  industries  of  Pennsylvania  ? 
They  leased  the  Camden  and  Amboy,  or  the  United  Kail- 
roads  of  New  Jersey,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  an  outlet 
to  the  City  of  New  York,  and  from  their  own  reports  I 
gather  that,  from  the  date  of  taking  that  lease  until  the 
date  of  their  last  annual  report,  thev  have  lost  upon  that 
lease  the  large  sum  of  $5,986,113.42. 

That  is  none  of  my  business,  except  to  this  extent:  that 
if  I  come  before  the  public  to  enlighten  it,  I  have  the  right 
of  propounding  a  conundrum  which  I  shall  ask  you,  gen- 
tlemen, and  some  of  you,  ladies,  who  are  pretty  good  at 
guessing  riddles,  to  solve  before  you  go  away,  and  it  is 
this :  If  it  was  necessary  for  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company,  in  the  course  of  these  few  years,  to  lose 
$5,986,113.42  out  of  their  treasury  for  the  purpose  of  get- 
ting to  New  York,  would  it  not  have  been  far  better  for 
them  if  they  had  stayed  away  and  continued  making  ten 
)er  cent,  dividends  upon  the  business  of  Pennsylvania? 
Applause.~\  If  the  answer  to  this  conundrum  is  in  the 
negative,  then  I  have  simply  to  suggest,  as  I  did  before, 
that  that  loss  of  $5,986,113.42  was  either  borne  by  the 
stockholders  of  the  Pennsylvania  liailroad  Company,  or 
it  was  imposed  as  an  additional  burden  upon  the  internal 
commerce  and  local  industries  of  Pennsylvania. 

If  this  is  so,  what  good  does  it  do  to  the  City  of  Philadel- 
phia ?  Would  it  not  have  been  better  if  the  company  had 
devoted  its  energies  to  Philadelphia  and  to  Pennsylvania? 
Would  it  not  have  been  better  that  it  never  should  have 
been  necessary  to  impose  such  a  burden  on  the  prosperity 
of  Pennsylvania  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  a  Pennsyl- 
vania corporation  to  build  up  the  commerce  of  a  rival  city  ? 
But  I  may  be  answered  that  the  Reading  Railroad  Com- 
pany followed  the  example  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company  when  it  leased  the  Bound  Brook  Railroad.  I 
believe  my  friend,  Mr.  Knight,  who  is  here  to-night,  would 
be  very  glad  to  get  the  road  back.  But,  gentlemen,  we 
took  that  Bound  Brook  Railroad  for  the  purpose  of 
supplying  the  local  market  of  New  York  with  the  pro- 
duct of  Pennsylvania  industry ;  and  we  took  it  because 
the  Pennsylvaiua  Raih-oad  woidd  not  permit  us  to  go  over 
their  Delaware  and  Raritan  Canal,  except  at  a  rate  wliicli 


23 

compelled  us  to  pay  about  eighty-three  or  eighty-four 
eents  a  tou  to  get  eoal  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York. 

Instead  of  im})Osiiig  one  penny  upon  the  commerce  of 
Pennsylvania,  that  Delaware  and  Bound  Brook  Railroad 
has  opened  an  avenue  to  the  business  of  Pennsylvania 
and  found  a  market  for  it  in  the  City  of  New  York,  and 
to-day  the  lease  account  stands  on  our  books  showing  that 
we  have  not  lost  one  penny  over  and  above  the  rental 
paid  for  the  line.  For  the  first  seven  months  of  the  lease 
we  lost  |48,000  after  paying  rentals,  and  I  am  happy  to 
say  that  up  to  this  time  that  loss  has  been  made  up  in 
increased  profit,  and  that  the  lease  has  not  only  not  cost 
the  Beading  Bailroad  one  penny  in  the  whole  past,  but 
will  be  a  source  of  great  profit  in  the  future.  It  has 
already  made  enough  to  pay  all  its  expenses  and  all  its 
rents,  as  against  a  loss  to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  of 
$5,iJ()(),()0(),  in  round  numbers,  to  secure  a  similar  outlet. 
[_App/ause.^ 

But  there  is  something  more  than  all  this.  The  C^ity 
of  Philadelphia  has  lost  the  affection,  it  has  lost  the  good 
wishes  of  the  people  of  Pennsylvania ;  they  do  not  come 
to  Philadelphia  or  know  its  citizens.  If  you  go  into  cer- 
tain portions  of  Pennsylvania  beyond  the  line  of  the 
Reading  Railroad,  you  will  find  that  all  local  business 
goes  to  the  City  of  New  York.  If  you  travel  upon  any 
of  the  lines  marked  in  yellow  on  yonder  map  which  lead 
from  the  coal  fields  of  Pennsylvania  to  New  York,  you 
will  find  that  the  people  who  live  upon  those  lines  of  rail- 
road, and  work  and  toil  in  those  coal  fields,  those  who 
mine  coal  and  develop  the  industries  of  the  regions  are 
affiliated  to  New  York  and  have  no  affiliations  to  Phila- 
delphia. They  read  the  New  York  papers ;  they  believe 
in  New  York  people ;  they  keep  their  money  on  deposit 
in  New  York,  and  go  to  New  York  to  buy  their  goods ; 
whereas,  if  they  had  been  attached  by  transportation  lines 
to  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  if  the  coal  lands  had  been 
owned  in  Philadelphia,  if  their  railroads  had  led  to  Phila- 
delphia, your  own  City  would  have  secured  the  commerce 
of  their  coal  and  gotten  the  pay  that  results  from  selling 
their  products.  It  would  have  had  the  distribution  of  the 
money — it  would  have  had  the  sale  of  the  goods  that  were 


24 

required  to  feed  and  clothe  the  vast  population  of  the 
entire  anthracite  region.  All  this  it  has  lost,  and  what 
has  been  gotten  in  exchange  ?  Do  we  get  any  business  here 
in  Philadelphia  from  Chicago  ?  Does  the  merchant  of  Chi- 
cago, or  the  Illinois  farmer,  who  owns  or  raises  the  grain 
and  sells  it  at  Chicago,  sending  it  via  Philadelphia  on  a 
through  bill  of  lading  to  Liverpool,  spend  anything  here  ? 
Does  Philadelphia  secure  any  of  his  business  ?  Does  it 
sell  him  merchandise  or  ship  him  goods  ?  Why,  gentle- 
men, when  the  Chicago  merchant  imports  his  goods  from 
Liverpool,  or  from  Marseilles,  or  from  Bremen,  they  go 
through  the  City  of  Philadelphia  consigned  in  bond  on  a 
through  bill  of  lading  to  Chicago,  and  our  merchants  get 
no  more  benefit  from  such  traffic  than  they  do  from  the 
rushing  of  the  wind  as  it  sweeps  over  their  City, 

What^  then,  is  the  moral  to  be  drawn  from  all  I  have 
said,  and  what  is  the  duty  of  Philadelphia  to-day  to  its 
State  ?  Gentlemen,  that  duty  is  to  win  back  some  of  this 
business,  and  to  secure  all  the  great  benefits  that  result 
from  connecting  the  City  of  Philadelphia  by  railroad 
lines  with  such  jwrtions  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Penn- 
sylvania that  are  not  yet  attached  to  New  York.  It  is  to 
give  up  this  wild,  evanescent,  and  fleeting  chimera  of 
western  commerce,  and  to  develop  the  local  industries  and 
the  business  of  your  own  great  State.  It  is  to  bring  Penn- 
sjdvanians  around  your  homes  and  into  your  marts  to  see 
and  to  know  you,  to  buy  your  goods,  to  keep  their  accounts 
with  and  draw  their  bills  of  exchange  upon  your  banks, 
and  to  send  their  commerce  to  your  port. 

And  with  this  I  end  the  first  branch  of  my  subject 
to-night.  I  began  with  it,  as  I  will  end  with  it,  by  say- 
ing that  it  is  the  duty  of  this  great  City  to  foster  and 
encourage  the  local  industries  of  its  own  great  Common- 
wealth.    \_Applause.~\ 

How  can  this  be  done  ?  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  how 
it  can  be  done  when  I  speak  upon  the  second  brancli  of 
my  subject,  upon  which  I  now^  enter,  namely :  The  true 
position  which  the  City  of  Philadelphia  should  occupy  to 
the  transportation  lines  of  the  State. 

I  call  your  attention  again  to  the  maj),  and  ask  you  to 
look  at  the  red  lines  of  the  Reading  Railroad  which  so 


25 

tlioronghly  develop  that  portion  of  Eastern  Pennsylvania 
which  lies  between  the  Delaware  and  Susquehanna  rivers. 
I  will  then  ask  yon  to  look  at  those  three  blank  spaces  in 
the  Commonwealth,  which  are  as  yet  practically  without 
development  by  railroads,  and  I  tell  you  that  the  aim  and 
object  of  the  Eeading  Kailroad  Company — an  aim  and 
object  which  it  had  jiist  secured  the  ability  to  bring  to  a 
successful  termination — was,  after  having  attached  to  the 
City  of  Philadelphia  forever  this  great  wealth  of  mineral 
lands,  to  develop  these  remaining  portions  of  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania.  We  had  one  line  ]n-ojected  northwest  from 
AVilliamsport  to  reach  Port  Allegheny  and  to  connect 
with  lines  leading  to  the  lake  ports.  It  was  located 
through  a  region  rich  in  bituminous  coal.  It  would  afford 
direct  access  to  the  great  Bradford  oil  region  of  McKean 
County.  The  money  to  build  the  line  was  subscribe(\  the 
preliniinary  contract  to  furnish  it  was  signed,  and  it  w^as 
ready  to  be  paid  at  the  date  of  my  arrival  in  London  last 
December;  but  when  I  got  there  and  found.  ;:s  I  and  my 
friends  suj^posed,  that  there  was  some  doubt  as  to  vrhether 
the  future  policy  of  the  Eeading  Railroad  Company  might 
not  be  changed  under  a  management  which  might  find  it 
to  its  interest  to  regard  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  with 
great  favor,  those  who  had  subscribed  this  money  said  to 
me,  "  Until  the  result  of  this  litigation  is  determined,  we 
will  not  pay  our  money  to  build  any  railroad  Avhich  may 
hereafter  be  obliged  to  depend  upon  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Company  to  secure  an  eastern  outlet  for  its 
traffic."  So  for  the  present,  at  least,  the  project  w^as 
arrested. 

Then  there  was  ])rojected  west  through  the  centre  of 
the  State  a  line  (indicated  by  the  dotted  line  on  the  map), 
and  those  who  projected  it  were  willing  to  build  it.  At 
all  events,  they  had  agreed  to  build  some  seventy  miles  of 
it  to  connect  with  our  system.  That  would  have  opened 
a  very  rich  field  of  bituminous  coal ;  it  would  have  l^een 
of  great  service  to  us  and  to  the  City  of  Philadelphia  ;  but 
for  the  same  cause  it  is  temporarily  suspended  in  order 
that  it  might  first  l)e  discovered  who  really  controlled  the 
Reading  Railroad,  before  capital  was  expended  that  might 
be  at  the  mercy  of  that  great  corporation  that  is  supposed 


26 

to  be  pulling  the  wires  that  move  the  puppets  who  appear 
before  the  public  for  the  delectation  of  the  citizens  of 
Philadelphia.     [Appla  iise^ 

Again,  if  you  will  look  at  Harrisburg,  you  will  see  the 
line  from  Harrisburg  to  Philadelphia,  which  is  composed 
of  our  Lebanon  Valley  branch  and  the  main  line  from 
Reading — one  of  the  best  lines  in  the  country,  with  excel- 
lent grades  and  good  alignment,  but  with  no  business 
from  any  point  beyond  Harrisburg, 

A  party  of  gentlemen  in  the  AVest  were  ready  to  con- 
tinue that  line,  so  as  to  lead  out  through  the  southern  tier 
of  counties  that  are  to-day  practically  without  a  railroad  ; 
they  had  agreed  to  subscribe  $10,000,000  for  share  capital 
to  build  that  line,  and,  Avhen  I  went  abroad,  I  was  author- 
ized, if  I  could  get  it  at  fiye  per  cent. — as  I  could  have 
done — to  borrow  $10,000,000  on  first  mortgage,  which 
could  readily  have  been  obtained  after  a  cash  subscription 
of  $10,000,000  of  share  capital,  so  that  there  would  have 
been  secured  a  fund  of  $20,000,000  to  build  a  railroad 
that  would  have  been  of  more  value  to  the  Reading  Rail- 
road and  to  the  City  of  Philadelphia  than  any  equal  num- 
ber of  miles  of  railroad  that  had  ever  been  constructed  in 
this  Commonwealth.  But  this  project  had  also  to  be  sus- 
pended for  the  reason  that  capitalists  preferred  to  wait  the 
result  of  the  litigation  before  spending  their  money,  lest, 
when  it  was  spent,  they  should  find  that,  though  building 
a  line  to  connect  with  that  of  the  Reading  Railroad  Com- 
pany, the  latter  might  hereafter  be  simply  another  name 
for  one  of  the  departments  of  the  great  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Company. 

So  all  these  great  enterprises  have  been  nipped  in  the 
bud ;  they  are  lying  in  abeyance  waiting  the  progress  of 
events.  Whether  they  shall  go  on  or  not  will  depend  very 
much  upon  the  citizens  of  Pennsylvania,  and  especially 
ujDon  the  citizens  of  Philadelphia.  But  in  n  ddition  to  all  this 
proposed  development  of  the  State,  if  you  will  look  alf  the 
blue  lines  upon  the  map — I  mean  the  blue  lines  of  railway, 
for  the  water-courses  themselves  are  shaded  in  blue — all 
these  blue  lines  of  railroads  in  the  west  arc^  to-day  con- 
nected with  the  system  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Reading- 
Railroad,  except  that  to  the  south,  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 


27 

1  vailroad ,  with  which  we  were  very  nearly  being  in  connection 
when  the  Pennsylvania   Railroad   Company  came  in  with 
tlieir  money  and  bonght  np  the  intermediate  line  for  the 
pnrpose  of  preventing  the  nnion.  and  now,  unfortunately, 
we  shall  have  to  wait  until  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Rail- 
road Company  constructs  its  new  railroad  to  Philadeljihia. 
Now  all  these  systems  are  in  connection  with  that  of  the 
Reading.      For  three  or  four  years  it  has  been  under- 
stood among  a  great  many  financial  people  in  the  City  of 
Philadelphia  that  the  Reading  Railroad  Company  could 
not  live  but  from   day  to   day  ;   indeed,  the  symptoms   of 
impending  dissolution  were  so  certain  and  so  grave  that  I 
believe  a  great  many  of  the  leading  doctors  of  finance  were 
in  the  habit  of  giving  daily  opinions  that  the  patient  could 
not  survive  the  night,  and  would  go  out  w^ith  the  tide  in 
the  morning.     So  long  as  the  Company  was  in  artxcuJo 
mortis,  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  did  not  care 
about  putting  forth  any  great  efforts  to  get  hold  of  it,  but 
waited,  as  a  wise  general  whose  besieging  army  is  living  upon 
the  fat  of  the  land  waits,  until  the  process  of  the  starvation 
of  the  besieged  garrison  is  completed.     What  they  sup- 
posed to  be  an  actual  dissolution  occurred  on  the  21st  of  last 
May,  when  the  Company  suspended  payment ;  but  finding 
that  I  was  so  ignorant  a   financier,  so  stupid  a   railroad 
manager,  and  so  incompetent  a  general  as  not  to  know 
when  I  was  beaten,  and  that   after  all  I  was  likely  to 
give  them  as  much  trouble  as  a  corpse  as  I  had  done  in 
the   full    vigor    of  life    [laughter'],    I    think   they  made 
up  their  minds  that  they  would  wait   no   longer  for  the 
slow  process  of  obstructive  warfare,  but  would  attempt  to 
get  the  control  of  the  Reading  Railroad  by  a  coup  demain. 
And  this  is  the  danger  that  confronts  the  City  of  Phila- 
delphia to-day.     The  danger  is,  that  the  system  of  rail- 
roads, of  which  I  have  been  so  long  at  the  head,  and  of 
which,  notwithstanding  the  loss  of  my  ornamental  title  as 
Resident,  I  have  a  good  deal  to  do  Avith  yet   [//rcat  ap- 
plausff\,  will  be  captured  by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company.     I  have  come  here  to-night  to  tell  you  of  this 
danger,  and  I  cannot  but  think  that  it  is  about  as  much 
your  business  to  prevent  it  as  it  is  mine.     [App/ause.] 


I 


28 

Now,  why  do  I  say  that  this  danger  exists  ?     I  say  it  I 

because  I  believe  it.  I  believe  it  because  the  circumstan- 
tial evidence  of  the  fact,  after  a  fair  and  impartial  exami- 
nation, is  so  strong  that  if  equally  strong  testimony  was 
offered  against  a  prisoner  on  trial  for  murder,  it  would  con- 
vict him  and  send  him  to  the  gallows.  I  believe  it  because 
it  is  to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  alone  that  I 
owe  so  many  of  the  difficulties  I  have  had  to  contend  with. 
When  I  was  struggling  under  the  burden  of  a  load  of  debt, 
there  was  hardly  a  financial  institution  in  this  town,  with 
two  or  three  exceptions,  that  did  not  have  some  director  or 
some  stockholder  that  was  an  emissary  or  an  advocate  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  to  caution  it  against 
lending  us  money  or  giving  us  credit. 

At  the  very  lowest  period  of  our  depression,  when  I  had 
to  go  to  New  York  to  get  that  which  I  could  not  get  in 
Philadelphia,  a  Vice-President  of  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road went  over  to  New  York,  and  at  a  well-known  club, 
among  well-known  financial  men,  announced  that  when- 
ever the  stock  of  the  Reading  Railroad  reached  .119  per 
share,  he  sold  a  thousand  shares  short,  for  it  was  not  worth 
the  money.  That  was  a  very  good  way  of  helping  me  in 
tlie  City  of  New  York  to  get  money  upon  the  securities  of 
the  Reading  Railroad  Company.  \_Langhter^  I  believe 
it,  because  when  counsel  were  selected  to  take  charge  of 
the  litigation  against  us,  the  counsel  were  those  who  had 
been  affiliated  to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company.  I 
believe  it,  because  the  firm  of  Kidder,  Peabody  &  Co.,  of 
Boston  and  New  York,  who  represent  McCalmont  Brothers 
&  Q>o\n\)i\\\Y,  or  rather  their  senior  partner,  acted  as  one  of 
the  Committee  of  Five — the  chairman,  I  think — to  nego- 
tiate tlie  sale  of  the  Philadel])hia,  Wilmington,  and  Balti- 
more Railroad,  to  sell  it  to  the  best  bidder  and  at  the  highest 
price.  He  was  expected  to  do  that  which  was  the  best  for 
his  clients,  and  in  the  circular  which  lie  issued  inviting 
those  clients  to  repose  confidence  in  him,  and  to  send  hj^i 
their  shares,  he  stated  that  the  railroad  was  of  vast  value 
to  the  Reading  Railroad  Company  as  well  as  to  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  Company,  and  that  the  rivalry  and  the 
struggle  to  get  it  would  make  it  command  a  high  price. 


29 

He  knew  all  this  therefore,  for  he  piihlished  it  over  his 
own  signature ;  he  knew  that  we  relied  upon  the  Phila- 
delphia, AVilniington,  and  Baltimore  Eailroad  to  obtain 
traffic  from  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  ;  he  said  so; 
and  after  he  had  gotten  all  these  shares  into  his  possession, 
and  that  of  his  committee ;  after  he  was  empowered  to  ne- 
gotiate this  sale  and  perfect  and  close  the  contract,  he  not 
only  never  came  near  the  Reading  Railroad  Company,  nor 
offered  what  he  had  to  sell  to  a  single  man  connected  with 
its  management,  bnt  without  saying  one  word  to  us  he  sold 
it  to  our  enemy,  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  and 
I  infer  from  this  act  that  his  interests  are  not  those  of  the 
Reading  Railroad  Company,  but  are  identical  with  those 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company.     lApjjIause.'] 

1  believe  it  from  other  circumstantial  evidence,  among 
which  is  this:  that  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company 
proposed  to  construct  a  rival  road  to  Germantown  and 
Chestnut  Hill,  which  they  had  a  perfect  right  to  do,  and 
it  would  have  been  a  very  good  thing  for  the  property 
holders  along  its  proposed  line  if  it  had  been  constructed. 
They  located  the  line  ;  they  bought  property  a  year  or  two 
ago,  and  everybody  was  on  the  qui  vive  for  the  construc- 
tion of  the  railway.  Suddenly  it  was  stopped.  Why? 
I  am  informed  that  one  gentlemen,  who  is  not,  it  is  true, 
a  very  high  official  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company, 
but  one  who  knows  a  great  deal  about  what  he  is 
speaking  of,  said  that  the  construction  of  the  road  was 
quite  unnecessary,  for  after  the  change  in  the  management 
of  the  Reading  Railroad,  his  company  would  get  as  much 
of  the  Germantown  and  Chestnut  Hill  passenger  traffic 
to  Xew  York  as  it  wanted. 

Another  sign  is,  that  I  am  told,  upon  the  most  un- 
doubted authority,  that  the  Local  Superintendent  of  the 
Delaware  and  Raritan  Canal,  in  Xew  Jersey,  that  has  not 
been  getting  as  much  of  the  coal  trade  as  it  used  to  get 
from  us,  simply  because  we  are  sending  such  traffic  over 
the  Bound  Brook  Railroad,  said  in  very  expressive  lan- 
guage that  the  Bound  Brook  Railroad  had  dried  up  the 
Delaware  and  Raritan  Canal,  but  it  would  all  be  right 
before  long,  for  after  the  new  management  got  into  power 


30 

ill  the  Reading  Railroad  Company,  the  canal  would  get 
the  coal  trade  back  ao-ain. 

I  believe  it  from  some  other  signs.  I  believe  it  in  con- 
sequence of  the  attitude  of  some  of  our  good  friends,  the 
newspaj^ers.  I  do  not  desire  to  speak  against  the  news- 
papers, although  I  am  not  afraid  to  do  so.  [  Great  applause.'] 
There  are  two  or  three  (and  one  especially)  that  have 
been  very  kind  to  me,  and  there  is  one — I  do  not  like  to 
mention  names — that  early  in  the  campaign  very  vigor- 
ously opposed  me,  but  has  ended  by  being  quite  civil  and 
impartial,  and  I  cannot  but  think  well  of  it,  for  you  know 
that  "  there  is  joy  in  the  presence  of  the  angels  of  God 
over  one  sinner  that  repenteth."     [^Applause.'] 

But  I  have  a  recipe  which  is  an  infallible  one  for  dis- 
covering what  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company 
desires  to  accomj^lish  in  this  community,  and  that  is  to 
read  three  or  four  newspapers  in  this  City,  and  if  any  one 
following  this  recipe  does  not  discover  the  truth,  it  is  not 
for  want  of  information  given  by  the  newspapers,  but 
by  reason  of  a  lack  of  intelligence  in  the  reader.  [Laugh - 
fer.]  Whenever  you  see  three  or  four  newspapers  in 
this  City  attacking  any  particular  person  or  project,  you 
may  depend  upon  it  that  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Com- 
l)any  is  violating  its  charter  and  acting  as  editor  instead  of 
common  carrier. 

Let  us  be  candid  and  frank  about  this.  Here  we  are, 
citizens  of  a  great  metropolis,  certainly  as  well  educated, 
certainly  as  refined,  certainly  as  intellectual  as  the  citizens 
of  any  other  city  in  this  countr}^ ;  but,  though  located  in 
the  midst  of  such  an  intelligent  community,  the  papers  of 
Philadelphia,  with  a  few  honorable  exceptions,  are  so 
wedded  to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  that  they 
have  neither  eyes,  nor  ears,  nor  pen,  nor  tongue  for  any- 
thing but  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company. 

I  picked  uj)  some  of  the  papers  a  short  time  since,  the 
day  after  an  accident  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  As 
"  acddents  will  happen  in  the  best  regulated  families,"  so 
accidents  will  happen  upon  the  best  managed  railroads. 
There  was  an  accident  in  New  Jersey  the  other  day  to  a 
passenger  train  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  and  I  hap- 
pened to  read  the  papers  the  next  day,  with  one  or  two 


exceptions.  I  read  those  papers  with  a  great  deal  of 
interest,  for,  with  one  exception,  I  believe  every  one  gave 
as  the  only  reason  for  the  accident,  the  good  management 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  and  seemed  to  assure  its 
readers  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  such  good  management 
the  accident  could  not  have  occurred.  {^Lam/hter^  As 
to  the  other  paper  which  was  the  exception,  I  wrestled  a 
lono-  time  with  its  article.  I  think  it  would  have  taken 
Archbishop  AVhately  himself  to  get  at  the  meaning  of 
it ;  but,  from  my  little  recollection  of  the  rules  of  logic,  I 
was  enabled  to  reach  the  conclusion  that  the  object  of  the 
newspaper  article  was  to  show  that  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  had  purposely  killed  a  few  j^assengers  so  that 
they  might  have  a  small  number  of  killed  to  compare 
with  the  greater  number  carried  safely,  in  order  to  show, 
according  "to  the  doctrine  of  chances,  how  safe  a  thing  it 
was  to  travel  on  the  lines  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company.     \_Laughter  and  applause^ 

And  now,  when  I  am  speaking  about  the  newspapers,  I 
must  make  my  acknowledgments  to  my  friends  of  the 
Ledger.  Although  the  Ledger  h^  been  very  severe  upon 
me  since  I  went  to  Euroi)e,  everybody  knows  that  the 
Ledger  is  not  susceptible  to  the  slightest  corrupting  influ- 
ence ;  everybody  admits  that,  and  we  all  know  further, 
that  my  friend  Mr.  Childs  does  so  much  good  with  the 
money' he  gets  honestly  and  fairly,  that  we  wish,  much  as 
he  has,  that  he  had  a  great  deal  more  of  it.  :\lany  people 
have  supposed  that  the  Ledger  was  opposed  to  me,  and 
gave  circulation  to  all  these  ugly  articles  of  the  lawyers 
when  I  was  away,  because  Drexel  &  Co.  owned  two-thirds 
of  the  paper,  but'l  am  satisfied  that  such  was  not  the  reason, 
and  I  think  the  Ledger  in  that  respect  is  impartial  enough 
^iometimes  to  publish  articles  that  even  Drexel  &.  Co.  do 
not  like. 

Now  I  will  tell  you  the  reason  why  the  Ledger  does  not 
like  me.  The  Ledger  is  managed  upon  certain  well- 
recognized  principles  of  journalism,  one  of  which  is 
always  to  be  upon  the  winning  side.  {Laughter^ 
Another  is,  to  advocate  a  man  in  proportion  to  the  rank 
■  he  occupies  in  society.  {Laughter?^  When  the  Ledger 
found  that  McCalmont.s  intended  to  vote  against  me,  it 


32 

assumed  that  it  was  all  up  with  me,  and  giving  me  its 
])arting  benediction,  it  prepared  itself  to  welcome  my 
successor. 

It  also  unfortunately  happened,  that  at  the  head  of  a 
committee  in  England,  which  was  supposed  to  be  adverse 
to  me,  there  was  a  very  distinguished  man  who  held  the 
title  of  an  Earl,  and  the  Ledger  could  not  resist  that. 
\_Great  laughter^  Indeed,  when  I  was  in  London,  and 
heard  of  the  attitude  of  the  Ledger,  I  had  some  thoughts 
of  requesting  a  gentleman  who  wore  the  coronet  of  a 
Marquis  to  act  as  the  Chairman  of  my  Committee,  because 
as  the  title  of  Marquis  is  higher  than  that  of  Earl,  I 
knew  I  should  thus  capture  the  Ledger.  \_Great  laughter.'] 
But  suddenly  recollecting  what  I  had  lost  sight  of  before, 
that  my  friends  of  the  Ledger  were  on  very  intimate  terms 
with  a  Duke,  whose  rank  is  more  exalted  than  that  of  a 
Marquis  [laughter'],  I  determined  if  I  formed  a  Com- 
mittee, to  endeavor  to  procure  the  services  of  a  gentleman 
who  held  the  title  of  Prince  ;  for  I  knew  I  would  thus 
secure  the  Ledger  beyond  peradventure,  because  as  the 
etiquette  of  his  position  would  not  permit  a  reigning 
monarch  to  accept  the  chairmanship  of  a  railroad  com- 
mittee ;  if  a  Prince  was  at  the  head  of  mine,  the  enemy 
could  not  do  better.      [Great  laughter.] 

I  do  not  desire  to  say  a  word  against  the  Ledger. 
[Laughter^  I  would  not  do  so  for  the  world,  even  if  I 
wanted  to,  because  just  so  surely  as  I  stand  here  to-night 
I  am  going  to  win  in  this  fight,  and  when  I  do  win  the 
Ledger  will  be  on  my  side.  [Great  laughter  and  applause.] 
And  I  do  not  propose  to  close  the  door  in  advance  to  pre- 
vent its  getting  back  earlv.  It  will  be  all  rioht  if  we  onlv 
give  it  time. 

There  are,  however,  some  unchristianlike  and  ill-natured 
people  who  have  suggested  to  me  there  was  another  cause 
for  the  opposition  of  the  Ledger.  You  know  that  the 
Ljedger  has  a  fondness  for  obituary  poetry,  and  it  has,  I 
am  told,  the  biography  of  almost  every  man  of  prominence 
ready  to  put  in  its  columns  the  moment  he  dies,  and  it 
may  well  be  supposed  that  the  authors  of  these  sketches 
feel  something  akin  to  indignation  if  the  subject  refuses  to 
die  at  the  proper  time.      I  do  not  know  that  they  attempt 


30 
O 

to  accelerate  liis  departure  in  order  to  give  publicity  to 
their  effusions — but  human  nature  is  weak.  Of  course 
they  only  knew  or  expected  to  write  about  me  in  my  offi- 
cial capacity,  but  I  am  told  they  thought  my  expected 
official  death  would  afford  an  excellent  opportunity  to 
publish  an  obituary  notice  that  would  immediately  take 
rank  at  the  head  of  all  contemporaneous  funereal  litera- 
ture, and  I  learn  that  poetry  was  not  wanting  to  grace  the 
article,  but  that  the  following  verse  was  ready  to  conclude 
the  solemn  record  of  departed  worth : 

"Affliction  sore  long  time  he  bore, 
Deferred  bonds  were  in  vain  ; 
He  got  two  adverse  Court  decrees, 
And  that  put  him  out  of  his  pain." 

[Gre^  laughter.'] 

And  then,  I  am  told,  there  was  added,  like  a  postscript, 
"Gone,  but  not  forgotten."     ILaughter.'] 

And  now,  gentlemen,  I  have  given  a  great  number  of 
the  reasons  why  I  believe  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company  is  taking  part  against  us,  but  there  is  one  other 
which  I  must  touch  lightly,  but  of  which  I  do  intend 
to  speak  plainly,  and  that  is  the  recent  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania.  I  think  that  decision  is 
another  instance  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company's 
opposition. 

There  is  no  one  who  should  be  more  condemned  than 
he  who  criticises  the  motives  of  a  Court  because  it  has 
decided  against  him ;  but  the  correctness  of  a  legal 
decision  is  always  a  fit  subject  for  discussion,  and  there 
are  times  when  the  motives  of  Judges  may  be  fairly 
criticised.  We  all  know  that  one  great  difference  between 
the  two  professions — that  of  the  doctor  and  that  of  the 
lawyer — is  this :  that  when  the  doctor  makes  a  mistake,  it 
is  buried  out  of  sight  very  quickly ;  but  when  the  lawyer 
makes  a  mistake,* especially  if  that  lawyer  be  a  Judge,  he 
makes  it  in  writing  an  opinion,  which  becomes  the  prop- 
erty of  the  profession,  subject  at  all  times  to  the  decent 
and  respectful  criticism  of  the  Bar. 

The  Supreme  Court,  by  a  majority  of  four  to  three, 
in  the  late  election  case  of  the  Reading  Railroad  Company, 


34 

decided — what  ?  Tliev  decided  that  a  by-law  of  the  share- 
holders which  transferred  the  corporate  powers  of  the 
Company  to  the  Board  of  Managers,  also  transferred  to 
such  Board  of  Managers  the  rights  with  reference  to 
calling  meetings  for  an  election  of  officers,  which,  by  the 
charter,  were  vested  in  and  restricted  to  the  shareholders, 
and  they  held  that  a  meeting  called  by  the  Board  of 
Managers,  under  one  section  of  the  charter,  was  to  be 
treated  as  a  meeting  called  l^y  the  shareholders  under 
another  section,  thereby  disfranchising  the  large  majority 
of  the  shareholders,  who  treated  the  meeting,  as  its  call 
indicated  it  to  be,  as  one  convened  by  the  managers,  and 
thus  the  Court  gave  the  control  of  the  organization  of  the 
Company  to  a  minority  against  the  protest  of  a  majority 
of  the  sliarehold^'s.     Was  this  law  ? 

If  all  tlie  Judges  had  said  it  was  law,  I  would  not  have 
opened  my  mouth  about  it ;  but  I  will  tell  you  one  thing, 
that  when  jurists  of  the  eminence  of  Judge  Sharswood 
[^cijyp^ausf'],  and  Judge  Trunkey  [cipplause],  and  Judge 
Sterrett  [ctpplause]  say  that  it  is  not  the  law,  then  it  is  no 
contempt  of  Court  for  me  here,  or  elsewhere,  to  say  that 
Judge  fSharswood,  and  Judge  Trunkey,  and  Judge  Sterrett 
were  right,  and  that  the  majority  of  the  Court  decided 
that  to  be  law  Avhich  was  not  law.  There  is  but  one  power 
in  this  State  that  can  control  the  utterances  of  the  Court, 
and  "  wrest  the  law  to  its  authority."  and  you  all  kuoAv 
well  enough  who  that  power  is,  and  therefore  from  this 
cause,  also,  I  believe  that  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Com- 
pany is  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  opposition  to  the  Reading 
Railroad  Company. 

What,  then,  is  the  danger  to  you  as  citizens  of  Philadel- 
phia ?  Gentlemen,  look  at  yonder  smaller  map  to  the  right. 
The  shaded  portion  of  that  map  represents  the  l)uilt-up 
23ortion  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia.  The  lines  in  red, 
all  of  them'  to  the  north,  with  one  exception,  are  the  lines 
of  the  Reading  Railroad.  The  lines  in^black  are  those  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  With  the  exception  of  the 
lines  of  these  two  companies,  there  is  no  other  railroad 
entrance  into  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  and  none  other 
could  be  sC'cured  except  at  great  and  enormous  expense — 
the  expense  of  buying  property  and  tearing  down  houses 


O'J 


to  open  a  path  for  a  roadway  and  secure  ground  for  sta- 
tions. So  long  as  these  two  lines  exist  as  independent  lines, 
just  so  long  can  the  citizens  of  Philadelphia  select  either 
of  two  rival  routes,  and  send  their  traffic  over  which- 
ever one  will  take  it  on  the  best  terms.  If  one  company 
will  not  take  it  the  other  will.  The  system  of  the  Read- 
ing Railroad  is  connected  directly  with  all  the  lines  in 
blue  upon  the  large  map,  except  the  line  of  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  Railroad,  and  I  am  happy  to  say  that  within  a 
year  or  fifteen  months  it  will  be  connected  directly  witli 
the  lines  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  Company. 

The  City  of  Baltimore  has  three  independent  lines  ol 
railroad,  and  the  City  of  New  York  has  eight.  AMiat 
will  become  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia  if  it  is  to  have 
but  one  ?  That  is  the  question  I  ask  you  to-night.  AVhat 
will  become  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia  if  it  has  but  one 
line  of  railroad  ?  If  no  person  who  leaves  this  City  or 
comes  into  it,  unless  he  goes  or  comes  in  an  omnibus,  or  a 
boat,  or  on  a  bicycle,  or  a  wheelbarrow,  can  travel  except 
with  the  consent  of  one  corporation,  where  will  your  City 
be  left  in  the  race  of  competition  ?  It  is  for  you,  gentle- 
men, who  are  here  to-night,  to  prevent  this  catastrophe. 
It  is  for  vou  to  do  what  you  can  by  the  expression  of  puli- 
lic  sentiment,  and  otherwise,  to  prevent  the  control  c 
great  corporation  that  I  now  have  the  management  of,  from 
falling  under  the  protecting  ?egis  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Comjany. 

Let  me  tell  you  something  which  I  learned  only  on 
Tuesday  of  this  week.  You  know  that  the  AVabash  sys- 
tem of  railroads  is  making  an  arrangement  to  secure  east- 
ern outlets.  It  has  made  some  contracts  with  the  Delaware, 
Lackawanna,  and  Western,  and  it  recently  made  a  contract 
with  the  Central  Railroad  of  New  Jersey,  by  which,  if  tlie 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  would  permit,  the  traffic 
of  the  Wabash  line  can  be  thrown  upon  the  low  grade  line 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  and  thence  over 
the  Philadeljohia  and  Erie  Railroad,  belonging  to  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  as  far  as  Milton,  from 
which'point  it  would  take  the  line  of  the  Reading  Rail- 
road  (the  Catawissa  Branch)    to  Tamenend,  and  thence 


] 


36 

s'O  to  New  York  by  the  Central  Railroad  of  New  Jersey. 
That  arrangement  was  agreed  to  by  the  Pennsylvania. 
Railroad  Company,  I  am  told,  and  after  it  had  been 
agreed  to  by  the  Wabash  and  by  the  Central  of  New 
Jersey,  the  latter  company  applied  to  us  to  know  whether 
we  would  take  the  business  over  the  Catawissa  Railroad. 
I  met  some  of  the  parties  in  New  York  on  Tuesday  of 
this  week.  After  hearino-  what  thev  had  to  say,  I  said, 
"  certainly ;  we  shall  be  very  glad  to  take  the  traffic ; 
we  will  take  it  and  jjro  rate  with  you ;  and  the  more 
you  give  us  the  better  we  will  like  it ;  but  now  I  w^ant 
to  ask  something  else :  If  we  do  this,  we  also  want  busi- 
ness to  Philadelphia ;  we  want  the  traffic  for  Philadel- 
phia from  the  Wabash  line,  over  the  Low  Grade  line  and 
the  Philadelphia  and  Erie  to  Milton,  and  from  thence  by 
our  own  line  to  Philadelphia."  But  they  said  "  No  ;  we 
tried  to  get  that  for  you,  but  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company  utterly  refused  to  permit  the  joint  line  to  be 
used  for  bringing  any  business  into  Philadelphia." 

Now,  gentlemen,  why  was  this  refused  ?  The  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  Company  has  a  line  to  New  York  as  well 
as  one  to  Philadelphia.  All  the  business  they  throw  over 
the  Central  New  Jersey  is  carried  in  rivalry  and  opposi- 
tion to  their  New  York  ftine.  Why  do  they  j^ermit  com- 
peting business  to  go  over  a  portion  of  their  system,  and 
then  to  be  thrown  upon  a  rival  line  to  New  York,  and  do 
not  permit  it  to  go  over  exactly  the  same  portion  of  their 
system,  and  then  to^  be  thrown  upon  a  rival  line  to  the 
City  of  Philadelphia  ?  It  is  simply  because  there  are  so 
many  lines  leading  to  the  City  of  New  York  that  they 
could  not  prevent  the  business  going  there  if  they  wanted 
to  do  so  ;  and  if  they  closed  their  line  to  the  traffic,  the  busi- 
ness would  go  over  some  other  ;  but  there  is  but  one  line 
into  the  City  of  Philadelj^hia  beside  their  own,  and  if  they 
can  prevent  traffic  reaching  the  line  of  the  Reading  Rail- 
I'oad,  they  can  effi^ctually  prevent  its  getting  into  Phila- 
delphia at  all,  except  by  their  own  lines.  Therefore,  they 
discriminate  against  Philadelphia.  They  do  not  permit 
this  traffic  to  become  competitive  to  Philadelphia ;  they 
treat  it  as  competitive  to  New  York,  your  rival  city,  but 
it  is  their  own  local  business  for  Philadelj^hia,  and  they 


will  not  permit  any  portion  of  their  line  to  be  used  to 
make  a  competitive  route  for  the  traffic  of  Phihadelphia. 
\Miat,  then,  is  the  remedy  for  this  ?  The  remedy  is  to 
secure  the  control  of  the  Reading  Railroad,  and  to 
extend  its  system  so  that  PhiladeljDhia  shall  haye 
competing  railroads  as  well  as  other  cities.  To-day 
I  haye  the  control  of  the  shares  of  the  Reading 
Railroad  Company.  I  hold  proxies  of  more  than  a  ma- 
jority of  all  the  shares  of  the  Company  \_ap2:)lause\  ; 
hut  among  those  proxies  there  are  some  90,000  from 
those  whose  shares  are  not  yet  registered  in. their  own 
names,  and  including  those  90,000,  there  are  2)robably  a 
liun<lred  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  shares  that  are 
held  by  peoj^le  who  would  always  sell  at  a  fair  price,  who 
have  not  been  long  interested  in  the  Company,  and  who 
may  have  no  particular  desire  to  hold  on  to  their  shares, 
simply  for  the  purpose  of  benefiting  Philadelphia,  and  the 
danger  is  that  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company,  or 
people  in  its  interest,  will  buy  these  shares  of  the  Reading 
Railroad  Company.  If  they  do  buy  enough  shares  to 
make  up  a  majority,  when  added  to  the  holding  of  McCal- 
mont  Brothers  &  Co.,  they  will  effectually  own  the  Com- 
])any ;  but  if  they  do  it,  I  propose  to  make  them  j)ay  such  a 
]>rice  for  them  that  they  cannot  well  afford  to  wreck  the 
Company  afterwards ;  and  in  that  respect,  and  to  that  ex- 
tent, my  duty  to  the  shareholders  will  have  been  fulfilled, 
although  I  cannot  protect  and  defend  the  public  whose 
interests  I  may  be  said  to  have  somewhat  in  my  charge 
also.      \_Applause^ 

Often  and  often,  during  the  struggles  through  which  I 
have  been  passing  in  the  last  few  years,  I  have  thought 
that  if  the  necessity  ever  came,  if  I  was  ever  so  driven  to 
the  wall  that  I  coidd  not  see  my  way  out  of  financial  diffi- 
culty in  any  other  manner,  I  could  go  before  the  peoj)le 
of  this  State  and  make  a  public  appeal  to  them  to  save  this 
great  property  from  destruction.  I  believe  that  its  value 
to  this  State,  and  especially  to  this  City,  is  so  great  that  I 
could  have  made  that  appeal  with  the  sublimest  confidence 
that  it  would  be  successful. 

1  believe,  if  I  had  l)een  driven   to  the  wall,  that  I  could 
have  gone  upon  the  line  of  the  road  itself,  to  every  manu_ 
4 


38 

facturer  and  liousiness  man  upon  that  line,  that  I  couhl 
have  gone  to  its  26,000  employees,  and  gotten  every  man 
of  them  to  subscribe  some  little  of  his  hard  earnings  to 
protect  this  property  from  ruin  or  disintegration.  [Great 
applause^ 

Fortunately  there  is  no  longer  any  loss  from  disintegra- 
tion to  be  apprehended  ;  there  is  no  longer  loss  from  finan- 
cial failure  to  be  appreliended.  Thank  God,  the  share- 
holders and  bondholders  of  this  Company  need  not  lose 
anything,  and  will  not  lose  anything  if  they  hold  on  to 
their  property.  But,  not  having  gone  before  the  public 
to  save  the  property  from  destruction ;  not  having  gone  out 
among  those  I  have  named  to  save  it  from  disintegration ; 
I  do  come  before  an  intelligent  audience  of  this  great  com- 
mercial and  manuflicturing  City  of  Philadelphia  to  ask 
that  they  shall  do  something  to  preserve  its  independence, 
and  I  say  that  if  there  are  but  fifty  men  in  this  audience 
to-night,  each  one  of  whom  will  buy  one  thousand  shares 
of  Reading  Railroad  stock,  register  it  before  October  in 
their  own  names,  and  hold  it  over  the  election  so  as  to 
vote  for  the  old  management,  it  will  be  an  utter  impossi- 
bility for  the  enemy  to  succeed.   \_Great  applduxe.'] 

I  could  easily  make  up  what  is  called  a  syndicate  to  do 
this,  but  I  do  not  propose  to  go  quietly  to  work  and  buy 
shares  for  the  sake  of  sustaining  myself  in  any  position. 
Neither  am  I  speaking  for  myself.  I  re]:)eat  here  to-night, 
what  I  have  said  in  public  over  and  over  again,  that  the 
very  moment  the  Company  is  restored  to  good  financial 
credit  and  commercial  prosperity,  I  intend  to  sever  my 
connection  with  it  as  President.  I  am  therefore  making- 
no  appeal  for  myself.  I  am  making  an  appeal  to  the 
wealthy,  intelligent  people  of  this  City  to  protect  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Reading  Railroad,  to  protect  and  preserve 
it  as  a  highway  of  commerce  forever  for  this  great  City 
and  its  inhabitants.      [Applause.!^ 

Gentlemen,  I  assure  you  that  if  I  am  to  be  l)elieved, 
with  reference  to  any  financial  opinion,  this  purchase 
would  be  an  entirely  safe  one.  I  assure  you  that  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  adverse  decrees  of  the  Courts,  tlie 
Company  to-day  would  be  upon  the  high   road  to  pros- 


39 

perity,  its  debts  paid,  the  receivership  ended,  and  its 
sjiareholders  looking  confidently  to  dividends.  \_(ry('<it 
((pplause.~\ 

The  recent  adverse  decision  of  Jndo-e  McKennan  and 
Judge  Butler  did  not  of  itself  amount  to  anything  to 
retard  the  onward  course  of  its  prosperity,  for  all  that  was 
necessary  to  meet  the  ol:)jections  of  that  decision  was  to 
pass  a  resolution  that  the  bonds  which  those  Judges 
decided  to  be  illegal,  if  made  j^erpetual,  should  be  payable 
at  the  end  of  one  or  two  hundred  years.  That  could  have 
been  done  the  next  day,  or  the  next  week.  But,  un- 
foi'tunately,  at  that  time  there  was  a  doubt  as  to  who  had 
the  riglit  to  exercise  the  office  of  President,  and  who  had 
the  right  to  exercise  the  offices  of  managers,  and  until 
that  question  was  solved  no  one  could  act ;  for  the  public 
would  not  accept  with  confidence  the  acts  of  any  board 
whose  title  to  officewas  impeached  Ijy  judicial  proceedings. 

When  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  upon  this 
question  was  made,  it  determined  that  Mr.  Bond  was 
President,  and  that  his  new  Board  of  Managers  were  the 
lawful  managers  of  the  Company.  If  that  President  and 
that  Board  of  Managers  will  to-morrow  pass  a  resolution 
making  the  deferred  bonds  payable  in  one  or  two  hundred 
years,  they  can  secure  at  once  !|10,290,000  in  money  to 
})ay  off  the  whole  floating  debt  of  the  Company.  If  they 
will  make  the  mortgage  of  .^150,()()0,000  that  I  had  pro- 
l)Osed  to  issue,  payable  at  the  end  of  one  hundred  years, 
instead  of  being  perpetual,  and  thereby  meet  the  legal 
objections  of  the  Court,  I  will  hand  over  to  them  within 
sixty  days  of  its  execution  $40,000,000  in  money  for  the 
firsf  $40,000,000  of  the  five  per  cent,  bonds  secured  by 
the  mortgage,  which  they  would  have  a  right  to  sell,  and 
they  can  then  pay  off  the  indebtedness  of  the  Com^^any, 
pay  off  its  general  mortgage  debt,  pay  every  subsequent 
indebtedness  that  is  matured  or  about  maturing,  pay  its 
receiver  certificates,  and  its  arrears  of  interest,  and  have 
$6,000,000  in  cash  in  the  treasury.  Then  the  receiver- 
ship will  be  ended.  If  the}'  do  that  (and  it  can  be  done 
Avithin  a  Aveek),  I  will  give  them  my  solemn  obligation,  in 
writiiiu'.  instnntlv  to  resiscn   all   connection  with  the  Com- 


40 

])aiiy,  and  I  will  never  be  a  candidate  for  the  office  of 
President  again.      \_Lau(jJiter  and  applause.^ 

If  they  do  not  do  this,  however,  if  they' refuse  to  do 
anything  to  extricate  it  from  trouble,  I  give  them  this 
public  notice  that  I  have  given  them  in  private,  that  I 
will  be  a  candidate  again  [cqyplause]  ;  but,  if  I  am  elected 
President,  I  will  only  remain  in  office  long  enough  to 
carry  out  the  financial  plans  for  its  relief,  and  to  place  the 
Company  in  good  position.     \_ApplauseJ\ 

When  I  say  that  I  will  not  be  a  candidate  for  President 
at  the  next  election  if  the  Company  in  the  meantime  is 
restored  to  financial  credit  and  prosperity,  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  I  shall  not  have  a  great  deal  to  say  about  wdio 
shall  be  my  successor.  \_Laughter^  I  only  desire  to 
mention  this  so  I  wdll  not  be  misunderstood ;  and  I  am 
pretty  sure  that  my  successor  will  be  somebody  who  knows 
a  great  deal  about  the  Company,  who  has  been  with  it  a 
long  time,  who  knows  all  about  its  business,  and  who, 
while  watching  very  carefully  over  its  interests,  w^ll  keep 
one  eye  constantly  directed  across  Willing's  alley,  the 
narrow  boundary  that  separates  us  from  the  office  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company.     \_Laughter^ 

That  the  })urcliase  I  propose  to  you  is  a  safe  one  is 
[)roved  from  the  condition  of  the  Reading  Railroad  Com- 
])any  to-day.  The  Company,  wdtli  its  coal  and  iron  com- 
})any,  last  year  earned  of  net  profits  $8,861,000.  Up  to 
the  first  of  May  of  this  year  it  had  increased  that  amount 
$200,000,  which  is  equal  to  a  yearly  profit  of  over 
§9,000,000.  The  net  earnings  in  the  month  of  May  will 
l)e  at  least  $250,000  in  excess  of  those  of  May  of  last 
vear.  I  believe  the  net  earnings  of  the  months  of  June, 
July,  and  August  will  be  $1,500,000  over  those  of  the 
same  months  of  last  year ;  and  I  think  after  the  first  of 
S^'l^tember,  during  the  remaining  three  months,  we  can 
hold  ou]'  own.  If  we  can  do  this  we  shall  make 
$10, 700,000  this  year.  If  I  had  had  my  own  way  after 
si'lling  the  deferred  bonds,  and  could  have  issued  the  five 
pel-  cent,  consols,  the  fixed  charges  of  the  Company  there- 
after would  only  have  been  $7,500,000  per  annum ;  and, 
at  the  rate  of  this  vear's  earnino's  alone,  there  would  have 


41 

been  a  clear  profit,  over  and  above  all  fixed  charges,  of 
$8,000,000,  to  be  divided  among  the  sliareholders  and  tlie 
deferred  bondholders. 

There  is  no  risk  in  holding  this  property.  It  has  been 
kept  down  nnjnstly.  It  does  not  deserve  to  be  kept  down 
any  longer.  All  that  is  Avanted  to  save  it  is  that  the 
people  of  Philadelphia  should  take  hold  of  it.  I  won  Id 
rather  see  that  done;  I  would  rather  see  it  owned  here;  1 
would  rather  see  it  held  in  the  State;  I  would  rather  have 
the  victo'ry  and  the  triumph  that  would  result  from  the 
people  coming  forward  to  protect  this  great  industry  than 
to  succeed  by  any  secret  efforts  resulting  from  the  use  of 
the  most  abundant  means  that  could  be  placed  at  my  dis- 
posal by  my  personal  friends.      \_Great  applause.^ 

I  fear  I  have  already  occupied  too  much  of  your  time, 
but  I  have  yet  to  speak  of  the  third  branch  of  my  subject, 
and  that  is:  The  position  w-hich  the  City  of  Philadelphia 
sliould  occupy  to  the  great  raihvay  prol)lem  of  the  day. 
When  I  speak  of  this  I  speak  of  a  question  tar  above  and 
beyond  all  mere  questions  of  local  rivalry  or  supremacy ; 
a  cpiestion  above  and  beyond  the  conflicting  claims  of  rival 
lines  of  transportation;  a  question  that  affects  the  stability 
of  the  government  of  this  country ;  and  the  prosperity,  the 
wealth,  the  honor,  and  the  integrity  of  the  whole  ^^eople 
of  the  United  States. 

We  cannot  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  there  is  to-day 
all  over  this  country  an  uneasy  feeling  of  dread  and  ap- 
prehension in  the  minds  of  the  people.  There  are  many 
at  work  exciting  enmitv  ao-ainst  railroads  and  enmitv 
against  property.  There  is  what  is  called  an  anti-monopoly 
movement  going  on;  an  organized  effort  which  is  gather- 
ing strength  as  it  advances,  and  drawing  within  its  folds 
all  those  who  believe  that  the  railway  companies  of  the 
country  have  been  guilty  of  great  wrong.  The  danger 
resulting  from  the  growth  of  this  feeling,  and  from  the 
agitation  of  the  subject,  is,  that  in  the  blind  fury  whicli 
characterizes  any  such  movement,  those  who  control  it 
will  declare  that  the  possession  of  property  is  in  itself  to 
be  considered  and  punished  as  a  crime,  and  the  people,  in 


42 

a  rage  incited  by  undoul^ted  wrong,  will  not  separate  the 
ownership  of  property  by  one  person  from  the  crime  of  its 
unjnst  acqnisition  by  another. 

Now,  I  propose  to  consider  this  qnestion  calmly,  quietly, 
l)nt  earnestly.  I  shall  not  hesitate  to  speak  my  mind  and 
to  use  plain  language  if  it  be  necessary  to  do  so.  I  shall 
call  a  spade  a  spade,  and  I  shall  not  cloak  the  meaning  of 
my  direct  sentences  by  any  delicate  euphuism,  so  that  they 
may  not  fall  harshly  upon  the  ears  of  those  who  are  affected 
l)y  my  adverse  criticisms,  no  matter  who  they  may  be,  or 
what  may  be  their  positions.     [Great  applause^ 

Before  entering  upon  the  subject,  however,  for  my  own 
protection,  and  to  defend  myself  against  the  charge  that 
recent  animosities  and  recent  injuries  have  led  me  to  speak 
[»lainlv  and  to  denounce  uuhesitatingly  as  wrongs  and  out- 
rages, actions  which,  but  for  those  animosities  and  injuries, 
I  might  have  passed  by  in  silence.  I  ask  your  permission 
to  read  to  you  a  few  short  extracts  from  utterances  of  mine 
in  the  year  1873,  in  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  this 
State.  I  do  it  simply  to  relieve  me  from  the  charge  of 
being  filled  with  animosity  against  any  particular  interest 
or  any  particular  persons.  I  do  it  to  show  that  what  I 
consider  evils  now  I  considered  evils  then.  I  do  it  to 
show  that  what  I  point  you  to  to-day  as  something  that 
requires  your  earnest  attention,  I  pointed  out  eight  years 
ago  to  the  attention  of  a  reform  convention,  composed  of 
same  of  the  best  men  of  this  Commonwealth. 

On  the  17th  of  April,  1873,  in  speaking  of  measures 
looking  to  railway  reform  in  the  Constitution  of  the  State, 
I  said  : 

"  There  are  eight  or  nine  things  that  I  admit  should  l)e 
done  by  this  Convention.  In  the  first  place,  I  admit  that 
there  should  be  a  free  railroad  law,  by  which  any  persons 
can  build  a  railroad  wherever  they  please,  provided  that 
they  do  not  put  it  right  upon  the  track  of  another  road ; 
that  the  whole  Commonwealth  shall  be  open  to  every  man 
who  has  money  to  build  a  railroad.  I  believe  that  there 
should  be  some  constitutional  protection  for  the  inter- 
chanaje  of  traffic  between  one  railroad  and  another.  I 
])elieve  that  there  should  be  some  constitutional  i)rotectioii 


ii 


43 

fur  the  local  trade  of  a  community  that  resides  iij^on  the 
line  of  a  railroad.  I  believe — and  this  is  of  vast  impor- 
tance, and  it  is  something  which  I  think  is  entirely  over- 
looked in  its  most  essential  features  by  the  report — that 
there  should  be  some  protection  to  the  minority  stock- 
holders of  a  corporation,  whereby  one  large  corporation, 
bv  getting  hold  of  the  control  of  the  majority  of  the  stock, 
could  not  injure  the  minority.  I  believe  that  there  should 
l)e  a  constitutional  prohibition  against  the  officers  of  any 
railwav  company  engaging  in  business  along  the  line  of 
its  road.  I  believe  that  there  should  be  a  total  abolition 
of  the  free  pass  system.  I  believe  that  there  should  be  a 
prohibition  of  any  interference  or  control,  or  attempt  of 
interference  or  control,  by  a  railroad  company  or  its 
officers,  with  the  legislative,  judicial,  or  any  other  branch 
of  the  Government,  and  swift  punishment  to  the  guilty 
agent  and  to  the  corporation  that  employs  him  for  any 
such  interference."     \_Appk(use.'] 

On  the  2od  of  April,  1878,  in  criticising  some  sugges- 
tions by  members  of  the  Convention,  which  I  thought 
were  not  intended  to  secure  the  j^unishment  of  the  really 
guilty,  I  said : 

"Again,  if  we  are  to  punish  the  guilty,  let  us  pick  out 
the  guilty  agents  and  punish  them.  The  gentleman  from 
Arnistrong  County  (Mr.  Gilpin),  who  spoke  the  other 
day,  very  pointedly  called  the  attention  of  this  Conven- 
tion to  what,  I  think,  they  are  about  to  do,  and  that  is 
this :  The  stockholders  of  the  corporations  in  this  State 
liave  been,  over  and  over,  punished  by  the  very  acts  of 
the  guilty  officers,  which  have  called  ujDon  the  devoted 
heads  of  corporations  the  ire  of  this  Convention ;  and  in- 
stead of  punishing  those  guilty  authors  you  i)ropose  again 
to  punish  the  stockholders.  Now,  I  take  it,  Mr.  Chair- 
man, that  if  every  railroad  company  in  this  State,  for  the 
last  thirty  years,  had  confined  itself  legitimately  to  the 
business  that  it  was  organized  to  carry  on ;  if  no  one  of 
them  had  ever  been  guilty  of  any  discrimination ;  if  no 
private  enterprise  had  been  stricken  down  to  help  the  per- 
sonal interests  of  the  officers  of  a  company,  or  those  who 
were  in  a  ring,  there  would  be  no  feeling  of  animosity 
against  corporations  whatever,  and  this  Convention  might 


44 

liave  been  held  without  the  word  'railroad'  being  men- 
tioned in  it  once.  If,  therefore,  the  cause  of  this  animos- 
ity—the well-founded  complaint — has  been  :  that  unjust 
discrimination  has  been  used,  that  personal  rings  and  per- 
sonal cliques  have  benefited  at  the  expense  of  the  commu- 
nity, let  us  us  direct  our  thunders  against  the  guilty  agents 
and  punish  them ;  but  do  not  let  them  go  scot-free,  and 
punish  the  poor  stockholdei's,  who  already  have  suffered 
sufficiently  from  the  very  injury  that  we  are  called  upcjn 
to  redress."     [^Ajjp/ause.J 

On  the  18th  of  March,  1873,  in  advocating  the  passage 
of  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  that  was  opposed  l:)y 
many  advocates  of  railroad  interests,  I  said : 

"  But  if  I  came  into  this  Convention  as  the  representa- 
tive of  any  incorporated  interest  in  this  Commonwealth, 
I  should  urge  the  adoption  of  this  proposition  on  behalf 
of  that  Intercast,  and  for  this  reason:  That  nothing  can  so 
directly  and  surely  bring  those  interests  into  jeopardy,  and 
into  contempt,  and  into  danger,  as  to  array  against  them 
the  hatred  and  ill-will  of  the  community  from  which  they 
derive  their  powers.  The  very  moment  you  draw^  the 
distinction,  the  moment  the  property  of  the  corporation  is 
more  sacred  than  the  property  of  the  individual,  that 
moment  you  create  a  feeling  in  the  minds  of  the  indi- 
viduals against  the  exercise  of  corporate  power,  a  feeling 
which  does  not  belong  to  it,  and  which  ought  not  to  be 
there,  and  which  cannot  be  justified  upon  any  other  ground 
than  that  you  are  giving  to  these  corporations  powers 
which  you  deny  to  an  individual.  And  I  take  it  that  the 
corporate  powers  of  this  State  will  never  be  in  any  such 
great  jeopardy,  the  property  they  represent  will  never 
be  in  any  such  great  danger,  and  the  interests  that  their 
officers  are  called  uj^on  to  protect  will  never  be  so  likely 
to  be  taken  aAvay  from  them  as  Avhen  you  raise  a  whirl- 
wind of  storm  and  indignation  in  the  minds  of  the  people 
tlii'(jughout  the  State,  which  no  man  can  put  dow^n,  and 
which  no  man  can  stand  up  against,  and  which,  when  it 
is  once  raised,  will  crumble  into  dust  corporation  after  cor- 
poration, like  all  mob  power  does,  without  any  regard  to 
which  was  the  offender,  to  which  was  in  the  right,  or  which 
was  in  the  wrong.     I  take  it  that  every  man  upon  this 


45 

tluor,  Avlio  lia^  the  real  interests  of  corporations  at  his 
heart,  who  has  property  invested  in  corporations,  who  may 
OAvn  stocks  in  them,  will  be  in  favor  of  withholding  from 
the  statute  books  of  the  State  every  law  and  every  statute 
which  gives  to  them  an  advantage  which  is  not  given  to  an 
individual."      [Ajjj^Iause.^ 

All  that  I  have  read  to  you  was  spoken  by  me  eight 
years  ago ;  and  standing  here  to-day  with  the  experience 
of  those  eight  years,  having  read  a  great  deal  and  having 
thought  a  great  deal  upon  the  subject,  I  collect  under 
three  heads  the  three  great  evils  of  corporation  manage- 
ment from  which,  at  some  time  in  the  not  distant  future, 
the  guilty  agents  will  be  held  to  a  strict  accountability  by 
the  public.     These  three  evils  are  : 

FiEST.  The  unjust  ae(|uisition  of  wealth  by  railway 
officials. 

Second.  The  unjust  discrimination  in  rates  in  favor  «)f 
particular  individuals,  companies,  or  firms.     And, 

Thied.  The  corrupt  control  of  political  power  by  cor- 
porations or  their  officers. 

Upon  these  subjects  I  shall  speak  very  plainly.  I  shall 
attack  no  man,  and  mention  no  names.  I  shall  speak 
rather  of  systems  and  the  acts  of  corporations  than  of  in- 
dividuals. I  shall  endeavor  to  sjieak  as  a  philosopher 
speaking  to  intelligent,  reasonable,  earnest  men,  caring 
little  whom  I  offend ;  and  I  shall  not  be  deterred  from  the 
expression  of  my  opinions  by  regard  for  the  feelings  of 
any  one.  I  have  been  told  that  I  am  prone  to  attack  j^eo- 
ple.  I  have  been  cautioned  by  cautious  friends  against  a 
repetition  of  some  recent  public  utterances  of  mine  upon 
this  stage.  I  have  been  told  that  even  if  some  people  do 
wrong  they  are  very  powerful  and  they  may  be  very  re- 
vengeful. I  have  been  told  that  I  have  a  great  property 
under  my  control,  and  it  is  not  wise  to  give  vent  to  any 
harsh  criticism  against  those  who  may  have  it  in  their 
power  to  do  that  property  or  myself  an  injury.  But  I 
know  too  well  that  the  property  of  the  Reading  Railr<»ad 


46 

Company,  and  of  all  corporations  in  this  country,  is  in 
greater  jeopardy  and  in  greater  danger  from  the  blind 
wrath  of  an  aroused  people,  that  when  excited  will  not 
discriminate  between  the  just  and  the  unjust,  than  it  is 
from  any  other  cause.  I  shall  attack  no  one  except  for 
what  I  believe  to  be  wrong,  and  as  for  him  who  does  wrong, 
I  would  rather  be  defeated  by  his  enmity  than  succeed 
through  his  friendship,  and  if  he  pours  out  the  vials  of 
his  WTath  upon  me  for  what  I  have  said,  or  for  what  I  may 
say,  I  can  only  repeat  the  language  of  the  Psalmist : 

"Or  ever  your  pots  be  made  hot  with  thorns,  so  let  indignation  vex 
him,  even  as  a  thing  that  is  raw." 

And  now.  First:  "As  to  the  unjust  acquisition  of  wealth 
by  railroad  officials."  It  is  no  crime  to  be  rich;  it  is  often 
commendable  to  be  so.  The  danoer  is  that  the  thouo-ht- 
less  agitation  of  this  question  is  leading  thoughtless  people 
to  consider  that  it  is  a  crime  to  be  rich,  and  unless  the 
subject  is  openly  and  candidly  discussed,  when  the  crusade 
does  commence  it  may  be  a  crusade  against  property  and 
not  a  crusade  against  wrong.  I  am  anxious  that  it  shall 
be  a  crusade  against  wrong,  and  I  am  anxious  that  it 
shall  not  be  a  crusade  against  property ;  and  it  is  to  pre- 
vent this  to  the  extent  of  my  humble  power  that  I  speak 
upon  the  subject  to-night. 

There  are  men  in  this  country  at  the  head  of  great 
railroad  corporations  who  have  enormous  wealth,  that  was 
honestly  acquired  and  is  honorably  administered.  Why 
this  is  a  countr}^  in  which  every  man  has  a  right  to  get 
rich;  every  man  has  a  right  to  make  money.  I  do  not 
think  that  the  acquisition  of  riches  is  the  most  noble 
})ursuit  of  life.  I  think  the  fame  that  is  obtained  from 
superiority  in  intellectual  attainments  is  a  much  higher 
prize  for  the  young  man  to  fix  his  eyes  upon  in  starting 
in  the  race  of  life  than  the  accumulation  of  great  wealth. 
\_Applause^  But  if  a  man  desires  to  be  rich,  if  God  has 
given  him  ability  beyond  that  of  his  fellow-men,  and  he 
devotes  that  ability  to  the  acquisition  of  wealth,  he  will 
succeed ;  for  brains  will  tell  in  every  pursuit  of  life,  and 


47 

tlic  able  man  will  make  a  fortune,  while  the  man  who  is 
not  able  must  suffer  in  the  race.     All  men  are  not  alike. 

"  Tlie  pathway  to  the  grave  may  be  the  same. 
And  tlie  proud  man  shall  tread  it,  and  the  low, 
With  his  bowed  head,  shall  bear  him  company. 
Decay  will  make  no  diflerence,  and  death, 
With  his  cold  hand,  will  make  no  difference, 
And  there  will  be  no  precedence  of  power 
In  waking  at  the  coming  trump  of  God. 
But  ill  the  tem])er  of  the  invisible  mind, 
The  god-like  and  undying  intellect, 
There  are  distinctions  that  will  live  in  Heaven 
When  time  is  a  forgotten  circumstance." 

1  repeat,  then,  that  if  a  man  devotes  these  Gocl-given 
energies  to  the  acquisition  of  wealth,  and  is  successful,  he 
is  to  be  held  up  to  commendation  and  is  not  to  be  visited 
with  wrath.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  there  are  men  to-day 
at  the  head  of  great  railroad  enterprises  in  the  United 
States,  W'lio  have  enormous  wealth  that  was  honestly  ac- 
(pured,  and  is  honestly  and  bountifully  distributed.  But, 
gentlemen,  if  in  this  game  for  wealth  a  man  j)lays  against 
his  competitor  with  loaded  dice,  if  a  man  at  the  head  of  a 
corporation  fills  his  private  purse  out  of  every  large  trans- 
action of  his  company,  if  he  corruptly  controls  legislators 
and  sways  the  opinions  of  Courts,  if  he  makes  a  league 
with  all  that  is  bad  and  all  that  is  infamous  in  the  politi- 
cal organization  of  the  community  in  which  he  lives,  and 
thus  brings  under  his  control  the  property  of  every  citizen 
and  of  every  corporation,  such  a  man  does  incalculable 
injury  to  society,  and  his  example  and  his  wealth  do  more 
harm  than  could  be  done  by  an  army,  with  banners, 
marching  through  the  Commonwealth  in  an  onward 
course  of  devastation  and  of  plunder.  It  is  of  gain  so  ac- 
quired that  I  propose  to  speak  to-night.  It  is  of  such 
unjust  acquisition  of  wealth  to  which  the  attention  of  the 
people  of  this  country  should  be  directed ;  and  w^ell  will 
it  be  for  all  of  us  if  wt  can  succeed  in  so  directing  the 
attention  of  the  people  that  they  will  discriminate  between 
tliat  which  is  to  be  punished  and  that  which  should  l)e 
commended. 

Contrast  in  these  respects  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company  with  the  Reading  Railroad  Company.     I  can 


48 

speak  of  the  Reading  Railroad  Company  with  sincerity 
and  apart  from  egotism,  for  I  can  speak  of  others,  and  not 
of  myself.  I  have  been  connected  with  it  for  twelve 
years.  There  is  under  me  an  army  of  26,000  men.  There 
are  men,  officers  upon  my  staff,  at  the  heads  of  de^oart- 
ments,  and  toiling  in  the  ranks,  some  of  whom  have  been 
with  the  company  forty,  forty-five,  thirty-five,  thirty,  and 
twenty-five  years.  Did  yon  ever  hear  it  even  whispered  that 
any  one  of  these  men  had  feathered  his  own  nest  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  company  ?  \^Appk(use.^  Did  you  ever  heai- 
that  a  whirlwind  of  indignation  wiis  rising  throughout  the 
State  on  account  of  anybody  connected  with  the  Reading 
Railroad  making  use  of  his  position  for  his  self-aggran- 
dizement ?  Never !  I  do  not  believe  that  in  all  this  staff' 
of  ofiicers,  in  all  this  army  of  men,  you  can  point  to  a 
single  one  who  has  to-day  in  his  pocket  or  under  his  con- 
trol one  dollar  or  one  penny  that  he  unjustly  earned  from 
the  company  with  which  he  is  connected.     \^Applause.^ 

How  is  it  with  our  great  friends  across  Willing's  alley  ? 
Why  even  to  be  within  the  vestibule,  as  it  were,  of  those 
fiivored  precincts  is  to  be  rich.  I  heard  some  years  ago 
that  an  old  gentleman  from  the  centre  of  the  State,  in 
walking  through  Willing's  alley,  stopped  in  front  of  the 
windows  of  the  room  of  one  of  the  officials  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  Company,  and  was  engaged  in  the  pensive 
contemplation  of  the  gentleman  who  sat  at  the  desk.  As 
he  was  there  wrapped  in  such  contemplation,  a  friend  of 
his  accosted  him,  saying,  "  What  are  you  doing  here  ?" 
"  Well,"  he  replied,  "  I  am  looking  at  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable men,  one  of  the  greatest  men  in  this  country  or 
in  the  world."  "  Why,"  said  his  friend,  "  whom  do  you 
mean  ?"  "  Well,"  he  replied,  "  there  is  a  young  man  who 
in  five  years,  out  of  a  salary  of  $5,000  dollars  per  annum, 
has  saved  $500,000,  and  he  has  not  lived  very  economi- 
cally either."      \^Laughter  and  applause.~\ 

Gentlemen,  it  is  this  that  is  bringing  the  profession  of 
a  railroad  man  into  contempt.  If  I  intended  to  remain  in 
that  profession,  I  should  try  to  strike  one  blow  for  its 
honor,  and  to  separate  myself  from  that  class  whose  actions 
are  likely  to  bring  down  upon  the  entire  profession  the 
just  indignation  of  an  outraged  people. 


49 

It  is  such  actions  I  have  been  condemning  ;  it  is  this 
kind  of  acquisition  of  weaUh  ;  it  is  the  fact  that  millions 
upon  millions  of  dollars  have  been  taken  away  from  the 
treasuries  of  companies,  and  scattered  among  a  few  favored 
officials,  which  is  arresting  the  earnest  attention  of  the 
l)eople  of  the  United  States. 

If  a  man  wants  to  grow^  rich  as  an  officer  of  a  railroad 
company,  let  him  buy  its  shares.  I  admit  that  the  chief 
officials  connected  with  a  railroad  should  be  well  paid; 
that  they  should  be  so  paid  that  their  best  services  may  be 
secured ;  but  apart  from  their  salaries,  and  the  dividends 
upon  their  stock,  they  should  get  nothing  from  the  Com- 
pany, and  every  dollar  above  their  salary  and  their  divi- 
dends that  they  can  make  by  virtue  of  their  position  ;  that 
is,  every  dollar  they  can  make  because  they  are  raihvay 
officers,  and  which  they  could  not  have  made  if  they  were 
not — every  dollar  made  by  taking  advantage  of  a  secret 
negotiation  for  the  benefit  of  their  company,  should  go 
into  the  treasury  of  the  company,  and  not  into  the  pockets 
of  its  officers.  \_Apj)!ause.']  If  they  want  to  get  all  of 
such  money  for  themselves,  the  only  honest  way  to  get  it 
is  to  own  all  the  shares  of  the  company,  and  to- take  it 
in  the  form  of  dividends.     \_Applause.'] 

There  are  men  in  this  country  who  own  nearly  half, 
and  have  owned  more,  of  all  the  shares  of  gigantic  corpo- 
rations of  which  they  are  officers.  His  proper  share  of 
every  penny  that  such  a  man  makes  and  turns  into  the 
treasury  of  his  company,  comes  back  to  him  l)y  virtue  of 
his  capacity  as  a  shareholder,  and  he  can  receive  it  with 
clean  hands  and  a  j^ure  heart.  If  those  who  have  grown 
rich  on  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  had  l)ouglit 
all  its  shares  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  when  a  very  few 
millions  of  dollars  would  have  bought  them  all,  and  then 
given  the  same  great  capacity,  the  same  great  ability,  and 
the  same  untiring  energy,  to  the  acquisition  of  wealth  for 
their  company  that  they  have  for  themselves,  they  would 
to-day  be  just  as  rich  as  they  are  now  ;  but  they  would 
have  received  their  wealth  as  dividends  upon  their  shares, 
without  inflicting  an  injury  upon  other  shareholders,  and 
they  would  be  entitled  to  expose  it  witli  pride  before  the 
whole  communitv  as  the  honest  fruits  of  an  upright  life. 


50 

What,  then,  is  the  remedy  for  the  evil  ?  The  remedy 
is  only  partially  with  the  pnblie.  It  is  principally  with 
the  shareholders  of  the  companies,  who  can  readily  apply 
it  at  annual  elections ;  but  honest,  fearless,  and  open 
l^ublic  condemnation  can  do  a  great  deal.  The  agitation 
of  the  question  at  meetings  such  as  these  cannot  fail  to 
have  some  good  effect ;  and  as  I  now^  scatter  the  seeds  of 
true  reform,  I  do  it  with  great  confidence  that,  though 
some  may  fall  upon  the  wayside,  and  some  upon  the  rocks, 
and,  though  some,  starting  into  life,  may  be  choked  by 
the  thorns,  there  will  still  be  others  to  fall  upon  good 
ground  and  to  bring  forth  fruit,  some  nn  hundredtbld, 
some  sixty-fold,  and  some  thirty-fold. 

Now^  as  to  the  second  evil :  The  unjust  discrimina- 
tion in  rates.  What  is  an  unjust  discrimination  in  rates  ? 
A  discrimination  in  rates  that  affects  places  may  not  be 
unjust.  If  one  company,  to  reach  a  competitive  point,  has 
to  go  by  two  sides  of  a  triangle  to  meet  the  opposition  of  a 
(competing  line  which  transports  only  over  the  third  side, 
the  company  that  runs  around  the  two  sides  has  a  right 
to  carry  freight  to  that  competing  point  at  the  same  rate 
as  the  company  owning  the  short  line,  although  the  rate 
per  ton  per  mile  for  such  traffic  may  be  much  less  than  is 
charged  for  local  business  between  the  termini.  If  they 
do  not  do  so  they  cannot  get  the  business.  It  is  bettei- 
for  them  to  get  the  business,  even  at  a  small  profit,  than 
not  to  get  it  at  all;  and,  therefore,  it  does  not  follow  that 
because  a  railway  company  carries  to  one  point  at  a  lower 
rate  per  ton  per  mile  than  it  carries  to  another,  that  there 
is  any  unjust  discrimination  in  the  rates.  But  when  ;i 
company  carries  to  the  same  place  the  same  business  f()r 
one  man  at  a  lower  rate  than  it  carries  it  for  another ;  when 
one  man  lias  a  rate  which  enables  him  to  do  business  and 
defy  competition,  and  wdien  another  man  has.  a  rate  upon 
the  same  traffic  under  which  he  is  utterly  unable  to  do 
business  at  all,  then  the  com})any  giving  such  favored  rate 
is  guilty  of  outrageously  unjust  discrimination.  Take  the 
case  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company.  Until  (piite 
I'ccently  (I  am  told  there  is  a  change,  but  1  have  had  no 
evidence  of  it  yet)  you  could  not  sell  coal  upon  the  line  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  to  any  one  except  to  four  parties. 


,1 


51 

Look  at  tlie  coal  property  of  the  Reading  Railroad.  What 
value  it  would  have  been  to  the  lines  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  as  a  source  from  whicli  to  draw  traffic.  AVe 
have  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  acres  of  coal  land ! 
The  largest  mining  company  in  the  world;  whose  estates 
produce"  three  times  as  much  as  the  largest  output  of  any 
coal  owner  in  Great  Britain.  Our  lands  are  located  just 
upon  the  lines  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company, 
near  the  Susquehanna  River.  We  could  have  given  it 
millions  of  tons  of  coal  as  freight.  We  never  would  have 
cared  or  thought  about  building  western  lines  if  tlie 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  would  have  taken  oui- 
traffic.  We  could  have  given  them  a  million  of  tons  per 
annum  to  the  Lakes  alone.  We  could  have  sent  half  a 
million  tons  over  their  local  lines  between  the  coal  fields 
and  Pittsburgh,  and  into  the  AVest;  but  the  only  way  in 
which  we  can  send  coal  over  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
to-day,  so  for  as  I  know  (although  I  must  do  them  the 
justice  to  say  that  I  have  been  told  the  system  has  been, 
or  is  to  be,  changed),  is  to  sell  it  to  one  of  four  firms,  who 
alone  had  rates  that  would  enable  them  to  carry  it. 

Look  upon  the  map  at  the  coal  fields  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Pottsville ;  look  at  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad's 
short  line  to  Erie.  If  we  sell  coal  to  one  of  two  firms, 
we  can  send  it  by  their  line  to  Erie,  but  if  we  want  to  sell 
to  any  one  else,  if  we  want  to  enter  that  market  as  a  seller 
of  coal,  we  have  to  go  around  Robin  Hood's  barn  to  get 
there,  and  there  is  no  more  use  of  attempting  to  try  to 
get  over  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  with  our  coal  busi- 
ness— and  make  the  trade  a  commercial  success — than 
there  would  be  to  carry  the  coal  in  a  balloon. 

At  this  very  time  we  are  sending  coal  from  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Pottsville  by  canal,  river,  and  lake  navigation, 
down  the  Schuylkill,  through  the  Delaware  and  the  Chesa- 
peake, up  to  Baltimore,  unloading  it  from  the  boat  u})on 
the  wharves  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  Com- 
pany, and  there  loading  it  upon  cars,  and  sending  it  by 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  to  Chicago,  going  prol)- 
ably  five  or  six  hundred  miles  of  unnecessary  distance, 
instead  of  sending  it,  as  we  would  be  glad  to  send  it,  over 
the  lines  of  the   Pennsylvania  Railroad.      There  was  a 


>yL 


time,  indeed,  when  they  offered  to  take  our  coal.  Within 
a  year  or  two  they  said,  "  We  will  go  out  of  the  anthracite 
coal  business  ;  we  will  either  give  you  all  the  coal  we  mine 
at  the  breaker,  or  we  will  lease  you  all  our  collieries ;  we 
will  open  all  our  lines  to  your  coal ;  we  will  take  it  all 
over  the  United  States ;  we  will  give  you  the  lowest  rates 
we  give  anybody ;  we  will  never  compete  with  you  ;  we 
will  do  all  that  if" — what?  "Provided  you  will  join  us 
and  prevent  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  getting  into 
Philadelphia,"  and  we  said,  "  No."     \_Ai)plau8c^ 

These  are  the  terms  upon  which  we  could  have  done 
I.Hisiness  upon  the  highways  of  this  Commonwealth.  The 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  hold  those  highways 
under  the  State,  by  virtue  of  the  right  of  eminent  domain. 
They  are  dedicated  to  public  use  as  public  highways.  We 
have  a  right  to  force  our  traffic  over  them,  and  we  are 
coolly  told,  "You  shall  not  use  these  public  highways;  you 
shall  not  have  your  business  taken  over  them  ;  you  shall 
be  excluded  from  their  use,  unless  you  will  unite  with  us, 
and  violate  the  law  yourself,  by  closing  your  own  public 
highway  against  the  business  of  another  corporation,  and 
thus  prevent  it  from  obtaining  entrance  into  the  Citv  of 
Philadelphia."      \_Appla  u^e^ 

I  have  read  to  you  to-night  the  notices  under  which 
they  stopped  the  oil  trade,  and  I  will  tell  you  how  they 
endeavored  to  stop  the  passenger  traffic  of  the  Baltimore 
and  Ohio  Railroad  passing  through  Philadelphia.  I  do 
not  mean  how  they  annoyed  us  on  that  one  mile  of  road 
when  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  passengers  were  going  over 
the  "Bound  Brook"  route,  because  you  all  know  that  they 
detained  the  trains  from  fifty-iive  minutes  to  an  hour  and 
ten  minutes  in  going  one  mile.  That  they  did  every  dav 
until  at  last  nobody  would  go  in  the  cars  to  suffer  the 
detention,  and  the  business  fell  off  so  that  it  was  not  worth 
while  to  transport  it.  But  when  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
( 'ompany  was  sending  its  passengers  over  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  Company's  own  line  to  New  York,  and  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  Company  got  the  benefit  of  tlu;  entire 
Inisiness  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York,  it  ha])pene(l  that 
th(?  Baltimore  and  Ohio  line  from  St.  Lcmis  was  so  much 
sliorter  than  that  of  the  Pennsylvania  Raihnjad  C/ompany, 


53 

that  the  former  company  couhl  make   better  time  into 
New  York,  and  by  virtne  of  that  short  line  the  Bakiniore 
and  Ohio  passengers  leaving  St.  Louis  reached  Xew  York 
about  half  an  hour  or  an  hour  ahead  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  passengers.      Of  course,  all  the  people  wanted 
to  go  by  the   short   route.      The   ingenious  manner  in 
whi'ch   the    Pennsylvania   Eailroad  put  a  spoke  in  the 
^Yheel  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  is  worthy  the 
attention  of  anybody  who  desires  to  study  modern  railroad 
tactics.      They  simply  changed  their   schedule   so   that 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  passengers  had  to  stop  one  hour  at 
the  AVest  Philadelphia  depot  for  dinner,  and  while  the 
poor   belated   passengers    were   waiting   for   dinner,   the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  trains  were  making  fest  time,  so 
that  both  arrived  at  Xew  York  on  the  same  schedule 
time.     [Lauffhter.']    That  little  meanness,  that  little  trick, 
that  contemptible  piece  of  chicanery  was  just  the  last 
feather  that  broke  the  back  of  the  camel.     It  is  just  that, 
I  believe,  which  made  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad 
Company  determine   that  it   would  build  a  new  line  of 
railway  to  Philadelphia.     The  result  of  those  few  dinners 
in  the  AVest  Philadelphia  depot,  from  which  the  restau- 
rant of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  receives  a  small  profit 
— I  really  do  not  know  whether  the  ofiicers  get  the  profits  or 
the  company  get  the  profits  [Jaughter']  ;  but  the  profits 
could  not  have  been  more  than  twenty,  thirty,  or  forty 
dollars,  and  for  the  sake  of  getting  that  profit  the  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad  will   lose  in  the  future  eight  or  nine 
hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year  in  the  Baltimore  and 
New  York  traffic. 

One  pretext  for  this  discrimination  in  rates  by  some 
railroad  companies  is,  that  they  only  make  it  in  favor  of 
those  who  do  the  greatest  business ;  but  oftentimes  this  is 
the  baldest  pretext  of  all,  because  these  unjust  discrimina- 
tions are  generally  in  charges  for  transporting  the  products 
of  the  mines  or  the  products  of  the  soil ;  not  products 
raised,  owned,  or  manufactured  by  the  shipper,  but  han- 
dled or  transported  by  a  factor  or  a  commission  merchant, 
and  the  very  fact  that  such  factor  or  merchant  has  the 
promise  of  a  lower  rate  enables  him  to  get  the  large 


54 

amount  of  business,  which  he  coukl  not  ol)tain  but  for 
that  lower  rate,  and  it  often  effectually  prevents  any  one 
coming  after  him  from  securing  the  same  amount  of  busi- 
ness, in  order  to  have  a  right  to  demand  the  same  rate 
of  charges.  When  I  became  President  of  the  Keading 
Railroad  Company,  nearly  all  the  coal  business  at  Port 
Richmond  was  done  by  factors.  They  did  not  own  the 
mines ;  other  people  mined  the  coal  and  consigned  it  to 
factors,  or  sold  it  to  coal  merchants.  If  the  Reading  Rail- 
road Company  had  taken  the  position  that  whoever  did 
the  largest  business  should  have  tlie  lowest  rates  ;  if  it  had 
simply  picked  out  one  or  two  of  the  commission  men  or 
merchants,  and  said,  "  If  you  get  a  million  tons  we  will 
carry  for  you  at  ten  cents  per  ton  cheaper  than  for  any- 
body else,"  the  extra  projfit  would  have  been  $100,000 
a  year,  and  all  that  w^ould  have  been  necessary  for  the 
favored  consignee  to  do,  in  order  to  get  his  million  of  tons, 
and  secure  the  low  rate,  would  have  been  to  go  up  to 
Schuylkill  County,  among  the  miners,  and  say  to  them, 
"  Consign  me  your  coal  for  this  year  and  I  will  give  you 
five  cents  better  than  anybody  else,"  and  he  could  thus 
have  secured  the  million  of  tons,  and  nobody  else  could 
have  competed  with  him.  He  would  have  secured  the 
business  simply  because  he  got  the  low  rate ;  and  he  could 
then  have  said  to  his  distanced  comj^etitor,  to  the  public, 
to  the  Legislature,  and  to  the  Courts,  "  Why,  this  is  per- 
fectly right ;  if  anybody  else  will  ship  a  million  tons  he 
can  have  the  same  rate,"  Nobody  else,  however,  could 
get  that  quantity,  because  one  man  had  already  absorbed 
so  much. 

It  is  quite  safe  for  a  railway  company  to  promise  to 
treat  all  alike,  after  their  favorites  have  secured  so  much 
of  the  particular  traffic  that  no  one  else  can  comply  with 
the  condition  upon  the  performance  of  which  all  are  to 
be  treated  alike. 

What  is  the  remedy  for  this  evil  ?  As  I  am  delivering 
a  lecture  on  abuses,  I  should  point  out  the  remedies  for 
such  [d3uses.  The  remedy  for  this  evil  is  with  the  Courts. 
I  opposed  at  Washington   (two  or  three  years  ago)    the 


55 

passage  of  a  law  upon  the  subject,  because  I  thought 
Congress  had  very  little,  if  anything,  to  do  with  the  con- 
trol of  the  railroads  of  the  different  States,  and  I  did  not 
want  them  to  have  anything  to  do  with  them.  [Applause.]^ 
I  advocated,  however,  for  "the  protection  of  shippers  of 
inter-State  commerce,  that  which  I  would  advocate  in 
Pennsvlvania  to-day  for  the  protection  of  those  whose 
consigiiments  do  not  pass  the  boundaries  of  the  Common- 
wealth, namely,  that  there  should  be  a  law  vesting  in  the 
Courts  the  power  to  issue  a  writ  of  mandamus  to  com]Del 
every  railroad  company  to  move  the  same  kind  of  traffic, 
between  the  same  points,  at  the  same  rate  for  one  person 
as  for  another. 

There  is  no  efficient  remedy  but  this.  If  the  shipper 
can  rely  only  on  his  action  for  damages,  and  he  ships  a 
cargo  of  peaches,  or  a  cargo  of  ice,  or  a  cargo  of  other 
perishable  material,  which  the  railway  refuses  to  trans- 
port without  discrimination  against  him  in  charges,  and 
he  brings  his  action  at  law  for  damages,  his  peaches  are 
rotten,  his  ice  is  melted,  his  perishable  property  is  de- 
stroyed, long  before  he  can  get  his  case  before  a  jury,  and 
a  verdict  in  damages  is  compensation  only  for  the  lo^:s  of 
the  particular  consignment,  but  not  for  the  destruction  of 
his  business  as  a  transporter.  What  is  wanted  is  some 
remedy  that  will  enable  a  man  in  business  to  have  his 
traffic  moved  instantly.  If  there  is  a  dispute  about  rates, 
let  security  be  deposited  in  Court,  and  when  the  Court 
decides  what  is  proper,  let  it  be  paid ;  l)ut  do  not  permit 
the  railway  company  to  stop  the  traffic  one  moment,  pend- 
ing a  dispute  about  rates,  if  security  is  offered  for  the 
proper  amount.  If  you  stop  the  traffic,  you  destroy  the 
business  of  the  shipper.  A  railroad  company  wins  in 
every  fight  of  that  kind,  because  the  remedy  by  an  action 
for  clamages  is  utterly  and  entirely  inadequate  to  cure  the 
evil.     \^A2)pIause.^ 

I  do  not  think  it  would  be  productive  of  good  to  have 
railway  commissions,  simply  because  I  fear  that  if  the 
great  corporations  could  not  secure  the  commissioners, 
they  would  attempt  to  influence  and  secure  the  powers  that 


56 

appointed  them,  and  it  is  much  better  that  all  these  things 
should  be  left  to  the  administration  of  justice  in  the  Courts 
of  law. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  degrading  effect  of  political  in- 
fluence upon  official  life,  I  have  often  thought  that  the 
judiciary  of  Pennsylvania,  after  the  blow  that  it  received 
by  the  introduction  of  the  elective  system,  received  no 
greater  blow  than  that  which  vested  in  the  Judges  the 
j^ower  to  appoint  persons  to  j^olitical  office.  It  has  not  yet 
done  much  harm ;  we  have  not  felt  it ;  the  system  is  too 
new  to  have  wrought  changes ;  but  for  many  years  the 
Legislature,  in  one  case  after  another,  has  been  vesting  in 
some  of  the  Courts  of  this  Commonwealth,  and  especially  in 
those  of  this  City,  the  power  to  appoint  j^eople  to  office ; 
and  what  will  be  the  result,  five,  ten,  or  twenty  years 
hence  ?  The  result  inevitably  will  be  this  :  that  the  people 
who  struggle  to  secure  those  offices,  the  lower  i3oliticians 
and  the  political  rings,  will  take  j^art  in  the  nomination  of 
Judges,  and  install  their  own  candidates  in  power,  for  the 
mere  purpose  of  disbursing  the  ]:)atronage  of  their  appoint- 
ing power,  and  from  that  moment  the  judiciary  of  Penn- 
sylvania will  begin  the  deep  and  rapid  descent  which  will 
inevitably  terminate  with  its  destruction.   [^Applet use. ^ 

Another  instance  of  danger  to  be  apprehended  from  a 
similar  cause  is  this.  You  know  how  badly  the  Indian 
affairs  of  this  country  are  supposed  to  be  administered, 
and  I  have  no  doubt  there  have  been  great  abuses.  It 
has  been  suggested  that  the  administration  of  Indian 
affairs  should  be  placed  under  the  control  of  the  regular 
army  of  the  United  States.  I  have  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  if  the  reoular  army  had  the  administration  of 
the  Indian  affairs,  for  the  first  five  or  ten  years  they  would 
be  honestly  administered.  Great  savings  would  be  made ; 
great  scandal  would  be  avoided ;  but  what  would  be  the 
ultimate  effect  uj)on  the  army  ?  How  long  do  you  think 
young  men  from  West  Point,  without  experience,  some  of 
them  probably  with  extravagant  habits  and  easily  led 
astray,  would  resist  the  corrupting  influences  of  a  horde 
of  Indian  contractors  and  post  traders  ?  The  result  would 
be  that  in  fifteen  or  twenty  years  the  morale  of  the  army 


57 

officers  might  be  destroyed  by  the  influences  which  some 
woukl  be  unable  to  resist.  And  so  I  say  that  if  you 
attempt  to  control  the  railway  traffic  of  this  country  by  a 
commission,  the  great  danger  is,  that  if  the  commission  is 
not  controlled  directly  by  the  railway  companies,  the 
power  that  appoints  the  commission  will  be.  People  will 
be  sent  to  Congress ;  candidates  will  be  selected ;  certain 
railway  companies  will  take  part  in  politics  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  securing  the  appointment  of  the  commissioners. 
The  only  remedy,  therefore,  that  I  can  suggest  for  this  evil 
is  that  which  the  Courts  can  administer, and  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  adequate  remedy  can  be  afforded  by  Congress,  or 
even  bv  the  Leo-islatures  of  the  several  States. 

The  third  and  last  evil  of  which  I  have  to  speak,  is  the 
corrupt  control  of  political  power.  AVith  sorrow  and  with 
shame  I  am  forced  to  admit,  that  there  is  no  State  that 
has  suffered  so  much  from  this  evil  as  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania ;  there  is  no  city  that  has  suffered  so  much  from 
it  as  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  and  without  hesitation  or 
fear  of  contradiction,  I  say  that  there  is  no  company  in 
the  whole  United  States  that  has  been  so  guilty  as  the 
Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company.  From  the  date  of  the 
repeal  of  the  tonnage  tax  until  within  a  year  or  two,  it  has 
owned  the  Legislature  of  this  Commonwealth.  It  has 
bought  its  memijers  like  sheep  in  the  shaml;)les.  There 
were  times  when  it  went  so  far  and  became  so  shameless, 
that  the  money  for  their  votes  was  given  at  stated  periods 
in  envelopes,  almost  with  the  regularity  with  which  other 
employees  were  paid.  And  what  has  been  the  result  ? 
Have  we  achieved  honor  ?  Have  we  achieved  greatness  ? 
Is  there  anything  in  the  recent  political  history  or  govern- 
ment of  this  State  of  which  a  single  citizen  can  be  proud  ? 

AVe  have  amongst  us  in  Philadelphia,  we  have  within 
the  borders  of  Pennsylvania,  as  able,  as  good,  as  honest, 
and  as  noble  men  -as  those  of  which  any  other  State  in  the 
Union  can  boast.  If  the  good  people  of  this  City  and  of 
this  State  were  permitted  to  select  their  own  representa- 
tives, they  could  send  to  Harrisburg;  and  they  could  send 
to  Washington,  as  able  a  body  of  men  as  that  of  any  other 


58 

State  ;  men  who  would  reflect  honor  upon  the  Common- 
wealth, in  whose  ability  we  could  take  pride,  and  to  whose 
integrity  we  could  look  with  glory. 

But  what  has  been  the  record  of  the  State  ?  The  name 
of  a  Pennsylvania  politician  has  become  a  by- word  of  re- 
proach all  over  the  Union.  Occasionally  a  good  man 
may  be  appointed  to  some  office,  but  how  seldom  do  you 
see  any  good  or  great  man  elected  to  a  great  or  a  national 
office  from  Pennsylvania  !  Why  is  it  ?  We  have  no  in- 
fluence in  the  councils  of  the  nation,  and  the  representa- 
tives which  Pennsylvania  sends  to  the  conventions  of  both 
23arties  are  powerless  to  protect  the  interests  of  the  State. 
It  is  because  those  who  fill  so  many  of  our  offices  have 
been  corrupted  and  debauched,  that  there  is  nobody  to 
stand  up  and  defend  the  interests  of  Pennsylvania,  except 
those  who  have  been  trained  to  look  out  for  their  own 
j^ocket  and  to  neglect  the  welflire  of  their  constituents. 

I  have  shown  you  the  effect  of  this  evil  uj)on  the  com- 
munity, and  now  let  me  ask,  what  has  been  the  effect  ujDon 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  itself?  Has  it  done 
that  company  any  good  ?  Is  it  good  for  that  company  to 
have  the  animosity  and  the  ill-will  of  the  great  and  good 
people  of  this  Commonwealth?  How  much  stronger 
to-day  would  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  be  in 
the  affections  of  the  people  if  it  had  never  tampered  with 
their  Legislature  !  \^AppIaiise.']  True,  such  interference 
has  been  temporarily  crowned  with  some  transient  success 
or  triumph.  True,  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company 
has  over  and  over  again,  by  reason  of  this  corruption,  ob- 
tained a  victory  over  its  oj^ponents,  but  at  what  cost,  and 
what  is  to  be  the  result  ?  The  end  is  not  yet,  and  when 
the  day  of  reckoning  does  come  I  am  sure  it  will  be  found 
that,  tested  by  business  principles  alone,  and  apart  from 
the  question  of  morality,  the  most  unfortunate  investment 
ever  made  by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Company  was 
the  money  expended  upon  political  corruption. 

Let  me  call  your  attention  to  one  thing.  You  see  that 
there  are  occasionally  accidents  upon  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad,  and  of  late  years  there  have  been  a  number.     It 


59 

is  as  well-built  a  railroad  as  there  is  in  the  world.     There 
is  hardly  a  mechanical  construction  or  appliance  that  in- 
2;enuity"can  invent,  or  that  money  can  purchase,  which  is 
not  made  use  of  by  the  Pennsylvania  Eailroad  Company 
for  the  comfort  and  safety  of  its  passengers.     I  do  not  be- 
lieve, as  a  j)iece  of  mechanism,  that  there  is  in  the  world 
so  good  a  railroad.     Why  then  do  they  have^  accidents  ? 
Whenever  there  is  an  accident,  if  you  look  at  its  cause,  in 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  you  will  find  it  has  been  due  to  some 
want  of  discipline  among  its  men.     It  is  utterly  impossi- 
l^le  for  any  great  corporation,  whose  principal  officers  have 
stooped  so  low  as  to  be  guilty  of  the  wrong  and  crime 
which  I  am   denouncing,  to  maintain  proper  discipline 
among  its  employees.     Why  ?     Simply  because  they  have 
corruptly  controlled  political  power.     They  are  not  only 
under  obligations  to  politicians,  but  politicians  of  the  low- 
est type  can  control  them,  because  they  are  in  the  posses- 
sion of  such  secrets  as  they  dare  not  permit  to  be  known. 
There  never  was  a  time  within  ten  or  twenty  years  when 
there  Avere  not  hundreds  of  people  of  this  State  who  could 
say  to  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  and  to  some  of  its  offi- 
cers, "You  must  do  what  I  ask  you  to  do,  because  I  know 
that  Avhicli  you  dare  not  permit  to  be  exj^osed."     There 
are  but  few'  of  the"  corrupt  politicians  of  the  State  who 
could  not  demand  from  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  Com- 
pany the  appointment  of  their  favorites  to  a  place  in  the 
service  of  the  company,  and  wherever  you  have  such  a 
sytem,  you  will  have  lack  of  discipline  and  an  inability 
to  enforce  a  strict  compliance  with  police  regulations.     A 
great  railroad  traffic  cannot  be  successfully  conducted  ex- 
cept when,  from  the  highest  down  to  the  lowest  in  the 
service  of  the  company,  every  man  can  instantly  turn  to 
his  delinquent  subordinate  and  dismiss  him  for  incompe- 
tency, without  the  fear  that  he  may  be  told,  "  You  dare  not 
discharge  me,  for  if  you  do,  I  will  say  something  about  you 
which  you  will  not  care  to  have  made  known."    \_Appla  use^ 
Do  you  think  that  those  upon  the  staff  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  Company  to-day,  who  have  been  manipu- 
lating   Councils   and    manipulating    Legislatures,    would 
submit  to  be  discharged?     AMiy,  gentlemen,  if  you  do, 


60 

you  know  little  about  human  nature ;  and,  wherever  such  a 
system  exists,  there  will  be  a  lack  of  discipline,  from  which 
the  public  as  well  as  the  shareholders  w^ill  suffer. 

This,  then,  is  the  third  of  the  evils  that  are  to  be  cured. 
What  is  the  remedy  for  this  evil  ?  The  remedy  is  abso- 
lutely and  entirely  with  the  people  of  this  State,  and  it  is 
to  be  enforced  at  the  jdoIIs.  There  is  no  remedy  but  this, 
and  this  remedy  the  public  must  enforce.  I  believe  that 
calm,  temperate,  wise,  but  earnest  and  fearless  discussion, 
will  brino-  about  the  proper  solution  of  all  these  difficul- 
ties. I  believe  the  good  time  is  coming  when  this  State 
will  be  purified  and  regenerated,  and  enter  upon  a  new 
career  of  prosperity,  of  honor,  and  of  glory.  That  this 
good  time  will  come,  I  am  well  assured.  That  it  will 
come  soon,  I  have  the  most  unfaltering  confidence.  If  it 
comes  quickly,  it  will  come  peaceably ;  but  if  it  is  long- 
delayed,  it  will  come  upon  the  wings  of  the  whirlwind, 
and  it  will  rend  its  victims  as  with  the  swift  lightnings  of 
God.  If  this  gigantic  corporation,  that  has  so  long  cor- 
ruptly controlled  the  destinies  of  a  great  Commonwealth, 
will  not  yield  to  the  demands  of  an  honest  people  for  an 
honest  government ;  if,  "  trusting  unto  the  multitude  of 
their  riches,  they  strengthen  themselves  in  their  wicked- 
ness;" if  they  continue  to  intrench  themselves  behind  a 
fraudulent  ballot,  a  corrupt  Legislature,  and  a  pliant 
judiciary ;  if  they  take  no  heed  to  the  first  low  mutterings 
of  the  coming  storm,  then  I  do  know  that  when  the  great 
tornado  of  23opular  indignation  bursts  uj^on  them  it  will 
be  with  the  irresistible  fury  of  the  avalanche,  and  it  will 
overwhelm  them  as  with  the  ghastly  ruin  of  the  earth- 
quake.    [^Ajjplause.^ 

To-day  is  the  time  for  discussion  and  for  warning. 
To-morrow  may  be  the  time  for  action  and  for  retribution. 

"No  time  for  speech,  the  trumpet  riugs; 
Be  patient,  steady,  calm  ; 
God  help  them  if  the  tempest  swings 
The  pine  against  the  palm." 

And  now  I  have  done.  I  have  pointed  out  to  you  the 
great  evils  of  a  bad  system,  and  the  greatest  of  all  is  the 
last,  of  which  I  have  spoken.     I  cannot  but  believe  that 


61 

you  will  do  your  part  to  place  your  great  City  in  the  posi- 
tion she  should  occupy  towards  a  system  which  permits 
such  wrongs  to  go  unrebuked.  Those  wdio  suffer  from 
the  injury  can  apply  the  remedy,  and  I  can  only  conclude 
by  exiDressing  the  fervent  hope  that  the  irresistible  fiat  of 
a  great  people  will  be  heard  and  obeyed,  without  invoking 
the  aid  of  any  other  instruments  for  the  protection  of 
society  than  those  which  are  supplied  by  the  organized 
forms  of  law ;  so  that  vice  may  be  defeated  and  virtue 
may  be  triumphant,  and  "  so  that  a  man  shall  say,  verily 
there  is  a  reward  for  the  righteous,  doubtless  there  is  a 
God  that  judgeth  the  earth." 


H  DAY  USF 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FI 


cmrwpn^^-^ 


^      This  book  is  due  on  the  la.f  H.. 

on  4e  daiTo'^L'rrlS"  ''"°"' ' 
Renewed  books  are  subject: 


Gaylamount 

Pamphlet 

Binder 

Gaylord  Bros.,  Inc. 

Stockton,  Calif. 
T.  M.  Reg.  U.S.  Pat.  Off. 


M1757S7 


1  1  v 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


